schemata architects' le labo kyoto store welcomes visitors inside a preserved machiya

inside le labo kyoto machiya store by Schemata architects

New York-based fragrance house Le Labo welcomes its latest store in Kyoto designed by Tokyo-based practice Schemata Architects. Tucked inside a 145-year-old traditional wooden townhouse known as a Machiya, the interior embodies the brand’s long-standing practice of slow perfumery, simplicity, and raw materiality, inviting clients to wander freely through pure ingredients and genderless packaging to discover and forge an intimate, olfactive connection with the scent itself. Once they do, they may watch their perfume freshly blended before them, personalized in their name.

all images courtesy Le Labo

Balancing Raw Architecture and Wabi-Sabi

Inside the carefully preserved Machiya, dating back to 1879 and once a respected sake family brewery, Le Labo’s new Kyoto lab celebrates Japanese heritage and craftsmanship. Over a year ago, the fragrance house in collaboration with the Tokyo-based design team at Schemata Architects began restoring the historical space, preserving original features like floors, walls, framing, and sinks using centuries-old materials and collaborating with local artisans. They incorporated their vintage aesthetic and slow perfumery needs into the Machiya, even constructing the fragrance lab booth with Japanese reclaimed wood instead of the typical distressed steel. Le Labo’s brand image thrives on combining raw, exposed architecture with hot rolled steel fixtures and vintage furniture, embracing beauty in used objects and the wabi-sabi concept. For this project, it was crucial to maintain this philosophy while creating a store that reflects the local and historical context of the old Machiya in Kyoto, as its structure and style differ significantly from the concrete buildings that typically house their stores.

‘How should we combine Japanese and Western cultures? Where should we take off shoes in the first place? (…) How can we integrate the image of blending into a Japanese space? How much of the existing part of the building should be left as is, while we want the space to be clean to handle products safely? How should we incorporate the brand’s typical finishes in a wooden structure? We repeatedly discussed these many questions with Le Labo and Deborah Royer, the Creative Director and worked out everything from design to planning, detailing of furniture, and antique furniture selections,’ shares Jo Nagasaka, founder of Schemata Architects.

inside Le Labo Kyoto Machiya store by Schemata Architects

A Harmonious Blend of Heritage and Craftsmanship

On the second floor, in two traditional tatami rooms, Le Labo invites for an experience uniquely focused on some of its core values. A fragrance organ displaying hundreds of essential oils reveals the true habitat of a perfumer at work. The other chamber, built as an homage to Japanese know-how, operates like an open atelier, welcoming local craftspeople and artists. Connecting the main house with the back, the original garden, with its stones, restored statues, and native plants, offers a tranquil retreat where visitors can enjoy coffee, teas, and vegan pastries from our tiny café shop built behind historic heavy wooden doors. Even after these subtle touches, the entire space still bears the scars of time with an unspoken dignity, embodying an unwavering commitment to the slow, the quietly beautiful, and the enduring.

‘As eternal students of wabi-sabi, we’re continually guided by the Soulful beauty that comes from moving slowly […] Kyoto has long been a source of inspiration, connection, and embodiment of our deepest values. Its lineage of craft and preservation, of time-honored skills, are beacons for how we seek to pay tribute to the language of the senses from a place of greater consciousness,’ says Deborah Royer, Le Labo’s Global Brand President & Creative Director.

preserving and repairing centuries-old features