After reviving an LVMH-acquired perfume house, Franco-Moroccan entrepreneur faces a Tokyo homebuilding “nightmare”
After relaunching a perfume house acquired by LVMH, Franco-Moroccan entrepreneur Ramdane Touhami thought he would be free to build his home in Japan as he wished. In a report published on November 6, he describes the difficulties of a project completed two years behind schedule.
“It was a nightmare,” Ramdane Touhami told the Financial Times. The 52-year-old Franco-Moroccan designer has just spent his first night in Sneakerbox House, his new home in Tokyo. Five years earlier, on the advice of a Japanese friend, he had bought the property intending to demolish the existing building and construct a home designed entirely to his tastes.
Born in Montauban to a family of agricultural workers originally from Morocco, Ramdane Touhami first made a name for himself in fashion. His entrepreneurial journey was already covered on Bladi.net in 2004. With his wife, Victoire de Taillac-Touhami, he later relaunched the perfume house Officine Universelle Buly in 2014, before selling it to luxury group LVMH in 2021.
A project that was supposed to be completed two years earlier
In Japan, the entrepreneur had found architectural freedom. Problems piled up as soon as construction began: foundations that were deeper than expected, obstacles discovered in the ground, restrictions imposed to preserve sunlight for neighboring homes, and living space that ultimately fell short of his expectations. The project was supposed to have been completed two years earlier.
Touhami had envisioned a house like a stack of shoeboxes, with each level having its own identity. The raw-concrete ground floor evokes contemporary Japan. The upper floor, clad in red brick, recalls Toulouse, the city where he grew up. Above that, glass bricks pay tribute to a famous Parisian house, while a terrace in black Japanese wood crowns the building.
Architect Shigeru Kubota helped him bring the project to life. The designer and his studio, Art Recherche Industrie, designed the interiors down to the smallest detail. His all-metal kitchen incorporates a huge boulder from the German Alps. Shortly before construction was finished, Touhami even decided to have the spiral staircase, originally white, repainted bright orange.
The house is now habitable. On the roof, the large terrace overlooking Tokyo is still waiting for its furniture.
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