Exhibit Japantown

This 97-unit apartment community in San Jose’s Japantown references the area’s Japanese-American heritage and supports the local art scene. The main constraint: the awkwardly triangular shaped lot, adjacent to a railroad track. The landscape designers turned the site’s leftover pieces into publicly accessible open spaces, including two parks inspired by Japanese gardens and a flexible courtyard garden.

This apartment community in the heart of San Jose’s Japantown has one-to-four-bedroom units with plenty of amazing amenities. The four-story building features two outdoor amenity decks for residents: a sky deck with a fire table and lounge seating that overlooks the neighborhood and a podium level with an outdoor cooking and dining area. To activate the street, the design team carved out room for a seating area in front of each on-grade unit.  We worked with the developer TriForge Capital Partners along with architect KTGY to create this multi-family residential building for the Japantown community.

HMH was honored to work very closely with the community in creating a design aesthetic and style that would speak to the culture of Japantown and its residents while also incorporating modern features. The close collaboration produced unique elements including two Japanese garden inspired parks, a large mural wall, and a flexible outdoor entertainment recreation space. The focus on zen-inspired elements help to reinforce the tranquility of the space in addition to a vine sculpture that will be placed within the garden. The plant palette includes plants such as the Japanese Maple, Blue Rush and Kangaroo Red Paw which will add to the contrast of bright accent colors against the darker neutral backgrounds.

Photographers: Haley Lan & Paul Ferradas

Costar Impact Awards Winner 2023:
Multifamily Development of the Year for South Bay/San Jose, California