Atelier Bow-Wow

Atelier Bow-Wow is a Tokyo-based architecture firm, founded in 1992 by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kajima. The firm is well known for its domestic and cultural architecture and its research exploring the urban conditions of micro, ad hoc architecture.

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1965. He studied architecture at Tokyo Institute of Technology, graduating from his undergraduate degree in 1987. Tsukamoto travelled to Paris to be a guest student at L’Ecole d’Architecture de Belleville (UP 8) from 1987–88 and in 1994 he completed a Doctor of Engineering program at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

In 2000 Tsukamoto became an Associate Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and in both 2003 and 2007 he was a Kenzo Tange Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at Harvard GSD. Also in 2007 and again in 2008 he was a visiting Associate Professor at The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Momoyo Kaijima was born in Tokyo in 1969. She received her undergraduate degree from the Faculty of Domestic Science at Japan Women's University in 1991 and both her graduate (M.Eng.) and post-graduate degrees were from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1994 and 1999. She was also a guest student at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH) from 1996-1997.

In 2000 Kaijima became an Assistant Professor, and in 2009 an Associate Professor, at the Art and Design School of the University of Tsukuba. Like Tsukamoto, in 2003 she was a visiting faculty (as a design critic) in the Department of Architecture at Harvard GSD and between 2005 and 2007 she was also a guest professor at ETH Zürich. In 2010 she was the Architect in Residence at the University of Auckland.

In the spring of 2014, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto signed on to be a member of the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition jury.

"Pet Architecture" is a term Atelier Bow-Wow uses for the buildings that have been squeezed into left over urban spaces. Buildings with curious shapes and inventive solutions for windows, drainage, and air-conditioning often arise in these urban situation. One example of this is the Coffee Saloon Kimoto in Tokyo, a triangular structure with a capacity of four customers.

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