When developing your Tokyo bucket list for your upcoming family adventures to Japan, teamLab Borderless is certain to feature. Since it was unveiled back in June 2018, this interactive art experience has become one of the most visited spaces in the city, and one not be missed. In true Japanese style, the ticketing and admission sequence is slick, enabling visitors to explore the space without ever really realising the number of visitors moving through space each day.
teamLab Borderless is one of our ‘must do’ activities in Tokyo with kids. It is immersive, hands-on and fun. The kids will love it!
We self funded our trip to teamLab Borderless.
teamLab Borderless Overview
Table of Contents
Billed as the world’s first digital art museum, teamLab Borderless at the Mori Building Digital Art Museum covers over 10,000 square metres of space utilising 520 computers and 470 projectors to create a sensory experience like no other. It can be overwhelming at times, peaceful at other moments, and thoroughly spellbinding throughout.
teamLab Borderless Zones
teamLab Borderless has the ability to never recreate the same experience. If you visit today and revisit again later you will not have the same experience as the site is constantly evolving. It makes it quite different from other museums.
I have decided not to write much about each space as part of the beauty of the teamLab Borderless immersive space is the sense of awe and wonder that overcomes you when you enter a space that you didn’t expect.
Borderless World
People understand and recognize the world through their bodies, moving freely and forming connections and relationships with others. As a consequence, the body has its own sense of time. In the mind, the boundaries between different thoughts are ambiguous, causing them to influence and sometimes intermingle with each other.
Athletics Forest
teamLab Athletics Forest is a new “creative physical space” that trains spatial recognition ability by promoting the growth of the hippocampus of the brain. It is based on the concept of understanding the world through the body and thinking of the world three-dimensionally. In a complex, physically challenging, three-dimensional space, immerse your body in an interactive world.
This space is the one I think is best suited to kids and is akin to a playground with slides, trampoline type structures and large ball type structures. I would save it until last as once in here the kids may be unwilling to leave!
Future Park
Learn & Play! teamLab Future Park is an educational project based on the concept of “collaborative creativity, co-creation”. It is an amusement park where you can enjoy the world creativity and freely with others.
Forest of Lamps
One of the most popular of the spaces with a wait time to enter.
EN Tea House
Make tea and a flower blooms inside the teacup. Flowers bloom infinitely as long as there is tea. The tea in the bowl becomes an infinite world in which the flowers continue to bloom. Drink in the infinitely expanding world.
Kids at teamLab Borderless
Both Sunshine and Striker loved teamLab Borderless and I noted that every other kid that we encountered seemed to be having the time of their life too. Whilst not intentionally geared to children, teamLab is a kids museum paradise as it is so immersive and hands on.
For those that like predictability and control over their environment, teamLab Borderless with kids can be a little unsettling which coupled with either a radiating brightness or in stark contrast, dimness of each room, may be a little overwhelming. As such, I encourage families who need to consider sensory overstimulation a caution before heading here or have strategies in place to support your kids.
teamLab Borderless is an Instagram delight and as such you will discover that almost every single adult in the space has a camera in hand and is trying to capture the perfect shot for their feed, all so it seems. Be mindful of this and control yourself from saying something – it is afterall one of the reasons so many people know about the place.
Visiting teamLab Borderless
Tickets
While the webpage says that tickets can be purchased on the day, we strongly advise against this and encourage you to purchase your tickets in advance as they sell out so quickly despite teamLab Borderless being a permanent exhibition.
Timing
Tickets are valid for the full day, but even then there is likely to be a queue. It does move quickly BUT it is extremely long. It took us around 45 minutes from arrival in the line to entry. Having purchased our tickets directly from teamLab we did receive an SMS the day before encouraging us to think about a late afternoon visit to miss the crowds, but even then it was busy.
In terms of time at teamLab Borderless, you could spend the day here! At a minimum, I would give it two hours but I think you need longer to really appreciate each room.
What to Wear
The floor is mirrored in many spaces so I avoid skirts and dresses. The ground is also uneven, so flat shoes are a must. There are lockers at the entrance hall, so make sure you pack away your bigger items and jackets before you enter. DO NOT take a pram with you. If you are visiting with your baby, bring along your baby carrier.
Storage
There are paid lockers at the entrance. You will need to bring along some coins.
teamLab Borderless App
Make sure you download the teamLab Borderless App before you visit. In some rooms you can use the app to change the lights when you are inside. It’s heaps of fun and the kids will love it. You can download the app here.
teamLab Borderless Details
Address (English): 138 Odaiba Palette Town, Aomi, Edogawa-ku, Tokyo-to
Address (Japanese): 森ビルデジタルアートミュージアム：エプソンチームラボボーダレス 東京都江東区青海1-3-8 お台場パレットタウン 2階
Opening Hours: Mon–Thu 11:00am – 7:00pm | Fri & Holiday Eve 11:00am – 9:00pm | Sat 10:00am – 9:00pm | Sun & Holiday 10:00am – 7:00pm
Ticket prices: JPY3200 (Adults), JPY1000 (Children up to middle school age)
Website: borderless.teamLab.art
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