TOKYO JAPAN

Johnson was raised in upstate New York and Dallas, Texas. After a year of high school living in Vienna, Austria, Johnson studied at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

While attending Parsons, Johnson worked for Polo Ralph Lauren. In 1982 he was asked to join the Ralph Lauren Design Studio full-time to work on the first Ralph Lauren Home Collection line. As Assistant Director of Home Collection Design, Johnson was involved in product design and also the design and display of the extensive Home Collection showrooms.

In 1985, Johnson helped establish the company’s Polo Store Development department, and worked on the design of the flagship Polo Ralph Lauren store on Madison Avenue, opening in 1986.

After a 15-month sabbatical traveling through the South Pacific, Asia, and Africa, Johnson returned to Polo Ralph Lauren as Director of Polo Store Development. From 1989 to 1992 free-standing Polo stores worldwide were designed and installed under his direction.

In 1992, Johnson left Polo Ralph Lauren and moved to Tokyo, Japan, where he founded his own design firm, G2 Design Studio, with partner Ryuichiro Gokyu. They created original store designs for various Japanese specialty retailers. In addition, both Polo Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss contracted G2 to implement all of their retail work in Japan.

Under Johnson’s design direction, G2 designed a variety of custom residences in the Tokyo metropolitan and surrounding areas. G2 also consulted on the design of suburban housing developments and Tokyo office buildings.

Although leaving G2 Design Studio in 2005, Johnson continues to work in Japan and Asia. Since 2005, he has designed apartment buildings Tokyo; worked on residences in Tokyo, Hakone, and Mitohama; factories in rural Japan, and was design consultant for a small beach-front handicapped-accessible resort on the island of Bali; and projects in Vietnam.

TOKYO JAPAN / Tom Johnson

TOKYO JAPAN / Tom Johnson