Spear’s Review

Inspired by his grandfather, an architect who worked on Modernist high-rise buildings in Tokyo, Takero Shimazaki moved to London in the early Nineties to pursue a career in architectural design. 

He established his practice – then called Toh Shimazaki Architecture – with Yuli Toh in 1996 and has since completed projects for private clients and cultural institutions such as the Royal Academy of Dance and Curzon Cinema in Camden. 

‘We tend to work on projects where we have good synergy and a shared vision,’ he tells Spear’s. ‘Our residential clients come to us for our idea of calm and a sense of materiality.’ His renovation of an apartment in the Barbican, designed to capture the character of a Japanese home, earned the RIBA 2024 London Award and was described by the organisation as ‘a place of gentle discovery’.