Looking for hotels in Tokyo, I ran across the 9-story Rakuragu hotel which squeezes in an ultra-narrow site in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo. Located near the iconic Tokyo Station, the skinny hotel has just 14 rooms, its design prioritizes outdoor space through the arrangement of balconies that face different directions, capitalizing on the gaps between the neighboring buildings.

Kojima Shinya and Kojima Ayaka, of Tokyo and Shanghai-based studio Kooo Architects, have created this new urban hotel by taking the constraints of a tight space in the city center and turning them into a design opportunity. The layout, combined with the balconies, surprisingly offers more space than what you would typically find in a Tokyo hotel room.

While the hotel is located in a less touristy area, it has access to four metro stations within a less than 10 minute walk and some lesser known historic sites such as the Nihonbashi Bridge .