Tokyo, for many of its inhabitants, is a faceless concrete jungle lacking any sense of community, unlike the days when close-knit row-house neighborhoods were the norm before the capital exploded into a soaring, postwar urban sprawl.

But in Arakawa Ward, in one of Tokyo's countless nondescript high-rises, an experiment is afoot by a select group of people endeavoring to regain, on two of the building's 12 floors, a sense of community lost.

For the experiment to work at Kankan Mori, as the two floors are known, however, all of the residents know they must pitch in and share with the chores.