Industry Interview: Hidekazu Daimon (K&now)
CEO of K&now, the company responsible for D-HOUSE.
A place where there's always someone to welcome you home.
- ---Your new sharehouse opened in July. What made you come into the industry in the first place?
- M. Daimon
Actually, I'm living in another company's sharehouse at the moment, and by living in a house myself I realized how great it was, and wanted to try my hand at managing one myself.
- ---That's very dynamic of you. Is that your personality, once you start thinking about something you can't stop?
- Mr. Daimon
No, not at all. I started looking into management about a year ago, meeting with those in the industry and learning a lot from them. The design of D-House came about through many discussions with the people in my own sharehouse. I guess females really do have good sense after all, because my ideas are always shot down as no good...
- ---(laughs) I did think the interior was quite stylish, but it was actually designed through discussions with the people you live with, right? That's amusing.
- Mr. Daimon
Yeah, and these kinds of connections are the great thing about sharehouses. Like, you meet people you wouldn't normally meet in your everyday life. Living by yourself you tend to go from home to work and back again, but with the place I'm living now if I want to make myself something to eat I pop into the kitchen and it's full of girls, or Westerners - it's different every time. The food everyone cooks is different, too. I'm rubbish at English so I communicate with gestures, but even that is fun. Hearing laughter and having people around to teach you how to cook become everyday occurrences. I'd love sharehouses to spread and become even more popular.
- ---And the cookware in the house is all Le Creuset cookware, something that would make those who love to cook happy. Was that a decision made from the advice of women, also?
- Mr. Daimon
I actually love cooking myself, and wanting my tenants to really enjoy their life in the house I paid particular attention to these kinds of details. My younger brother and I take care of the management side of things, and we think that going out to buy rice is difficult for females so we do that too. There is even a screen in the kitchen that displays messages from mobile phones. We really want to provide an easy-to-live, easy-to-communicate environment for the tenants.
---I bet the female tenants love that they can get you to go out and buy bags of rice for them. I also thought that the umbrella stand at the entrance and a lock for garbage duty are great ideas for shared living. Did that come about because you have experience living in a sharehouse yourself?
- Mr. Daimon
I want to take in and use everyone's advice as much as I can. Rather than deciding 'rules' for the house myself, I talk to the tenants living there and go on whatever everyone agrees on.
*Tokyosharehouse (LLC) does not carry out the administration of specific services that may be deemed as unfair toward other users or serve as an intermediary for moving into housing. For any questions regarding specific services or moving, please directly contact the owner or manager of the share house you wish to inquire about through our website. Also, please be aware that we cannot provide the contact information of the share house managers or owners.





