​When entering a Japanese home, it is expected to remove your shoes at the ‘genkan’ and step up into the raised floor clean of any dirt. The floor and the roof are the permanence of the home whereas the walls are flexible. The walls are lightweight movable, transparent or even open. This relationship between architectural elements create spaces that are free of hard boundaries between inside and out and create slow transitions from the inner home to the garden where the spaces are bound by light rather than walls to the point where inside at out blur together

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Flexible Boundaries in the streets of Diakanyama 
The streets in Tokyo vary Greatly from multilane highways to narrow lanes. In Diakanyama we can see examples of busy vehicle streets and small lanes and how the flow of traffic changes between them. The busier streets operate as any other main road. Pedestrians walk on the sidewalk and all other traffic flows through the middle. Two means of travel moving next to each other but separated. Although in the small lanes the two forms of travel informally blend. Pedestrians are free to walk in the middle of the road provided there are on incoming vehicles. The space is shared, vehicles slow down and noise is reduced, becoming more comfortable and efficient for pedestrians.
 

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 The polycentric city of Tokyo consists of many architectural forms that clash with one another. Buildings are regularly clad with tile, concrete and timber. The city can feel disjointed at parts. Although the city is full of greenery in the form of city planned gardens to resident’s potted plants outside their home and wild plants and flowers that grow between the cracks. This greenery is consistent throughout the city and acts as a buffer between clashing architectural forms and is the metaphorical thread that holds together Tokyo’s urban fabric.
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​Flexible boundaries in the KAIT workshop by Junya Ishigami
There is no separation of space the KAIT workshop. There is no defined circulation and no solid walls. Spaces inside the workshop are flexible and blur together, as furniture, potted plants and the 305 columns are the only division of space. The only separation from inside and out are floor to ceiling curtain walls that connects the interior to the landscape. The use of potted indoor plants and scattered column system further blurs inside and outside. The further you walk into the workshop the more enclosing the space is. These flexible boundaries in the workshop allow the use of space to easily change depending on the student’s needs.