When we live alone

When We Live Alone explores the ways in which we live alone together in contemporary cities. The unprecedented growth of urban dwellers living on their own challenges normative ideas about the home and raises questions about how this change in social structure and lifestyle affects cities as a whole. While the causes of living alone seem obvious—changing social values, the flexibilization of the workforce, new demographics, increased wealth, and changes in normative gender roles—the effects on society and its spatial configurations remain uncertain. Through a series of interconnected vignettes, the film interrogates this new urban condition, offering a glimpse into the lives of individuals living in single houses and the extended domestic sphere. Urban dwellers living on their own, architect Takahashi Ippei and sociologist Yoshikazu Nango navigate the audience through a series of unique spaces in Tokyo. If living alone is our new reality, the film asks, what does it look like?