TOKYO [UN]REAL ESTATE: How 3D Scanning Is Archiving the Soul of Tokyo Living Spaces

A New Kind of Real Estate Agency

What if a real estate listing did not just show you photos of a room — but let you walk through it, explore every corner, and feel the texture of someone's actual life?

That is the premise behind TOKYO [UN]REAL ESTATE, a groundbreaking project by speculative design studio MVMNT that transforms real Tokyo living spaces into fully navigable, photorealistic 3D worlds using Gaussian Splatting technology.

Developed as part of the CCBT Art Incubation Program at Civic Creative Base Tokyo in Shibuya, the project debuted with a public exhibition from February 28 to March 9, 2025 — and it represents one of the most creative applications of 3D spatial capture we have ever seen.

Visitor standing before immersive wrap-around screens displaying 3D scanned Tokyo apartments at the CCBT exhibition A visitor explores dozens of 3D-scanned Tokyo apartments projected on immersive screens at CCBT, Shibuya

What Is TOKYO [UN]REAL ESTATE?

MVMNT describes itself as a speculative design unit dedicated to "creating the legends of the year 20XX." For this project, they turned their lens on something deeply personal yet universal: the spaces where people actually live.

The team collected 3D scan data from dozens of real Tokyo apartments and living spaces, creating a digital archive of diverse lifestyles across the city. Each scan captures not just the geometry of a room, but the personality of its inhabitant — the clutter on a desk, the books on a shelf, the way light falls through a window.

The project draws inspiration from modernology (kougengaku), a form of urban sociology that emerged in prewar Japan. Where early modernologists documented city life through sketches and field notes, MVMNT documents it through photorealistic 3D Gaussian Splats — a 21st-century evolution of the same impulse to understand how people inhabit cities.

Room scan animation showing a 3D captured Tokyo apartment A 3D-scanned Tokyo living space — every object, every detail preserved as a walkable Gaussian Splat

From Physical Rooms to Digital Worlds

The scanning process is straightforward but the results are extraordinary. MVMNT's team visited real Tokyo residents, scanned their living spaces, and processed the captures into Gaussian Splats — the same photorealistic 3D format that professionals in real estate, construction, and architecture use every day on Splat Labs Cloud.

What makes Gaussian Splatting so powerful for this kind of project is the fidelity. Unlike traditional 3D modeling or photogrammetry, a Gaussian Splat preserves the photorealistic quality of a scene — light, texture, color, and depth — in a format that anyone can explore in a web browser. No app required. No VR headset needed.

The result: 32 properties scanned and displayed, each one a window into a real person's life in Tokyo.

Explore a 3D Scan: FabCafe Tokyo

One of the spaces captured during the project was FabCafe Tokyo — a legendary creative hub on Dogenzaka street in Shibuya where digital fabrication meets specialty coffee. The cafe is home to laser cutters, 3D printers, and a rotating cast of exhibitions and maker events.

Below is the actual Gaussian Splat scan of FabCafe Tokyo, hosted on Splat Labs Cloud. Click and drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, and explore the space as if you were standing inside it.

Try it yourself: Click and drag to look around. Scroll to zoom in and out. On mobile, use two fingers to navigate. This is a live, interactive 3D scene — not a video.

The Exhibition at CCBT Shibuya

The TOKYO [UN]REAL ESTATE exhibition ran at Civic Creative Base Tokyo (CCBT) in the Shibuya Tobu Hotel building. CCBT is a public creative hub operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, focused on exploring the intersection of art and digital technology.

The exhibition presented the project on multiple levels:

3D Room Viewers — visitors could walk through scanned apartments on interactive displays, exploring real Tokyoites' living spaces in photorealistic detail
32 Property Wall — a gallery-style display showcasing all scanned properties, presented like an imaginary real estate agency
Creative Works — manga, games, extended reality experiences, and animations created using the 3D scan data as open-source creative assets
Takeable Flyers — property-style brochures for each scanned space that visitors could bring home

The TOKYO UNREAL ESTATE exhibition interior at CCBT showing a large Tokyo map, workstation with materials, and 3D scan displays Inside the TOKYO [UN]REAL ESTATE exhibition — a Tokyo map pinpoints every scanned property, with creative works and materials on display

MVMNT also released the 3D scan data on a dedicated website, making the scans available as open-source creative assets — inviting artists, developers, and designers to build new works on top of real spatial data from Tokyo.

Room catalog showing multiple scanned apartments The Room Catalog — browsing scanned Tokyo apartments like a next-generation real estate listing

Why This Matters for 3D Spatial Capture

TOKYO [UN]REAL ESTATE is more than an art exhibition. It is a proof of concept for how Gaussian Splatting is becoming the default format for documenting real spaces — not just in professional industries, but in culture, art, and public archiving.

Consider the applications:

Use Case	Traditional Approach	With Gaussian Splatting
Real estate listing	Flat photos, maybe a 360 tour	Walkable, photorealistic 3D scene
Cultural documentation	Photos and written descriptions	Navigable digital twin anyone can explore
Interior design	Floor plans and mood boards	Full 3D context with AI virtual staging
Urban research	Field notes and surveys	Life-sized spatial archives preserved digitally

MVMNT's project proves that Gaussian Splats are not limited to commercial real estate or construction. They are a universal tool for preserving and sharing physical spaces — from a student's 6-tatami apartment in Shimokitazawa to a creative maker space in Shibuya.

Start Scanning Your Spaces for Free

How to Create Your Own Spatial Archive

Inspired by MVMNT's approach? You can create your own 3D spatial archives with Splat Labs:

Capture your space using PortalCam, a smartphone app like Kiri Engine, or any Gaussian Splat capture tool
Upload to Splat Labs Cloud at cloud.rockrobotic.com — processing takes just minutes
Share or embed your 3D scene on any website, in a Notion page, or via a direct link — no app required for viewers
Enhance with AI — generate floor plans, virtually stage empty rooms, or create fly-through movies

Whether you are documenting a property for sale, preserving a cultural space, or archiving a moment in time, Splat Labs gives you the tools to turn any physical space into a navigable digital world.

Splat Labs supports Gaussian Splats from any source — PortalCam, Lixel L2 Pro, Postshot, XGRIDS, Kiri Engine, Luma AI, and more. Upload in PLY, SPLAT, KSPLAT, or XGRIDS format and start sharing immediately.