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The “ethereal beauty” of classical Japanese Noh theatre informed Kengo Kuma and Associates’ design for the Banyan Tree hotel in Kyoto, with a dedicated stage hidden in its stepped gardens. More
Tokyo studio Schemata Architects has combined Japanese and Western designs inside a traditional wooden townhouse in Kyoto to create a store for perfumery brand Le Labo.
The building, otherwise known as a machiya, is located in the Kiyamachi area and has been revamped to incorporate Le Labo’s typical finishes while respecting its 145-year-old architecture.
The flagship store is located in an old Kyoto townhouse”How can a brand born and loved in the USA, a country with a culture of shoes-on, be in step with the values of traditional Japanese architecture, a culture of shoes-off, and blend in with Japanese culture?” Schemata Architects founder Jo Nagasaka told Dezeen.
“The project was a struggle between the two.”
Schemata Architects’ design respects the original interiorLe Labo stores are normally located in pared-back modern concrete buildings, but here, Schemata Architects kept the feel of the old townhouse, while making concessions for Western customs.
“We were discussing all the time how much of the existing weathered textures should be retained,” Nagasaka said.
A craftsman room is located on the second floorThe first floor, which showcases the brand’s products, feels more like other Le Labo stores, while the second, which houses offices, a craftsman room and a “fragrance organ”, has a more traditional feel.
“The first floor was furnished as a place to spend time standing up with shoes on, and products were displayed,” Nagasaka said.
“The second floor, on the other hand, was designed as a place to go up without shoes due to the height of the floor and the structure of the floor, so it consists mainly of low furniture.”
Antique and vintage furniture is used throughoutAs the store is located in an ancient city – Kyoto has been a city since 794 – Schemata Architects wanted the interior fittings to adhere to the traditional style of a machiya.
“The countertops, wall shelves, staircase, and other architectural elements are composed using the language of the machiya, and the paint scheme is consistent with the existing one, using antique colours of bengara, red earth pigment, and shown, pine soot,” the studio said.
Schemata Architects designed a pine staircase for the interiorThe studio has used mostly antique Japanese furniture pieces for the display cases and vintage Western metal lamps for the lighting design.
Schemata Architects also designed a staircase and shelving in pine wood for the interior, dying them to match the building’s existing structures.
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“We wanted the staircase and shelves to be as close to the existing structure as possible, so we applied an ‘old colour paint’ over the common type of wood, the same as is applied to the existing structure,” Nagasaka said.
“Old colour paint is a colour-controlled mixture of persimmon tannin and soot of burnt pine.”
Walls are left bare with products displayed on pine shelvesThe store, which also has a cafe in an adjacent building across a small courtyard, now embodies the “spirit of Le Labo,” according to Schemata Architects.
“By carefully connecting and blending the machiya building with new fixtures, furniture, and products, it embodies the spirit of Le Labo, which treats time, age, craftsmanship, handiwork, and textures with great care,” the studio concluded.
Other recent projects by Schemata Architects include a concrete-and-brick gallery in Seoul and a public bathhouse clad in turquoise tiles.
The photography is courtesy of Le Labo.
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2050 Coffee is a minimalist self-service coffee shop in Kyoto designed to raise awareness about sustainability issues surrounding the future of the drink.
According to architecture and interiors firm Teki Design, the coffee shop aims to interrogate “the 2050 coffee problem” – the fact that there could be a global scarcity of coffee the year 2050.
Teki Design created the interiors for 2050 Coffee in Kyoto”Climate change might lead to a decrease in areas suitable for coffee cultivation,” Teki Design founder Tatsuya Nishinaga told Dezeen.
“The current practice of enjoying the drink at coffee shops may become more of a luxury,” added the designer.
The cafe features self-service machinesIn response, Teki Design wanted to create a stripped-back interior for the cafe, where customers come and “learn about the future of coffee”.
2050 Coffee is spread over two open-plan levels and features large rectilinear windows on its facade, which reveal a monochrome interior.
Polycarbonate counters display the machinesInside, smooth grey walls create a backdrop for curved and illuminated counters made from corrugated polycarbonate sheets, chosen for their “inexpensive and familiar” qualities.
“While this material is often used for shed roofs due to its low cost and accessibility, it reflects light beautifully,” said Tatsuya.
A small seating area features at one end of the ground floorThe counters display brightly lit self-service screens connected to sleek silver taps that produce five types of “sustainable” drip coffee in around 10 seconds.
Polycarbonate was also applied to the cafe entrance to create a large, rounded sign emblazoned with the 2050 Coffee logo, which acts as a beacon when seen from afar.
Upstairs, shelves display various coffee paraphernaliaA small seating area at one end of the ground floor was formed from understated black benches.
Upstairs, more dark-hued seating was arranged next to a series of low-lit, chunky frame-shaped shelves displaying various coffee paraphernalia.
The shelves are reflected in floor-to-ceiling mirrors, selected to add to the coffee shop’s futuristic feel.
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As well as a cafe, 2050 Coffee is used as a space for various pop-up events that investigate coffee and sustainability.
Tatsuya warned that despite these issues, drinking coffee is becoming more popular worldwide, adding to the problem.
“As coffee consumption increases, particularly in Asian countries where tea has been the traditional choice, the balance between demand and supply may become disrupted,” he explained.
“Creating a place where people can first learn and then think together is what we consider our approach to problem-solving.”
2050 Coffee is positioned on a Kyoto street cornerPreviously completed coffee shops in Japan include a Tokyo cafe in a former warehouse and another in Kyoto clad in rapidly oxidised copper.
The photography is by Kenta Hasegawa.
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Japanese studios Td-Atelier and Endo Shorijo Design have transformed a townhouse in Kyoto into a noodle restaurant that combines traditional residential details with modern geometric interventions.
Kawamichiya Kosho-An is an outpost of soba restaurant Kawamichiya, which can trace its history of creating dishes using buckwheat noodles back more than 300 years.
Diners enter Kawamichiya Kosho-An via a small gardenIt occupies a 110-year-old property in the downtown Nakagyo Ward that retained several features typical of traditional Japanese houses, including a lattice-screened facade and an alcove known as a tokonoma.
Architect Masaharu Tada and designer Shorijo Endo collaborated on the townhouse’s conversion into a 143-square-metre restaurant, restoring some of the original elements while adapting others to suit its new purpose.
Changes in floor height delineate different dining areas”Originally it looked like a townhouse with an elaborate design, but various modifications were made for living and those designs were hidden or destroyed,” said Tada.
“Therefore, we tried to restore the elements of the townhouse such as hidden or lost design windows and alcoves and add new geometry to them to revive them as a new store.”
Guests can sit on floor cushions in the traditional Japanese parlourA lattice screen at the front of the building was restored to help preserve its residential aesthetic, while renovations were carried out on walls, pillars and eaves within the open-air entrance passage.
The entryway leads to a small genkan-niwa garden, where paving stones are laid to create a path using a traditional technique known as shiki-ishi.
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Customers enter Kawamichiya Kosho-An through a small retail area containing freestanding partitions that allow the original wooden ceiling structure to remain visible.
Built-in bench seating is positioned along one wall and a window seat offers a view of the street outside. Customers here can eat with their shoes on, while beyond this space they are required to remove footwear as is customary when entering a Japanese house.
Many of the building’s traditional lattice screens were retainedThe use of different materials and changes in floor height help to delineate areas within the restaurant and create a range of experiences. Guests can choose to sit on chairs in a porch-like space known as a doma or on floor cushions in the traditional Japanese parlour.
The kitchen is positioned at the centre of the building and is set slightly lower than the surrounding floors, allowing staff working behind the counter to have a clear view of each diner.
“We control the line of sight to the audience, the garden and the street by the height of each floor,” Tada said. “As a result, it is an original townhouse element […] and a new design that fuses old and new.”
One of the upstairs rooms features a curved funazoko-tenjo ceilingSome of the existing features that help to preserve the building’s character include the tokonoma alcove in a room on the first floor, which also has a curved wooden ceiling known as a funazoko-tenjo.
In Kawamichiya Kosho-An’s main dining area, a tokonoma was replaced with a low decorative shelf while the original screened window in this space was retained. Traditional wooden doors and paper shoji screens were also adapted and used to partition the space.
The restaurant is set in a converted townhouse in KyotoTada studied at Osaka University before founding his studio in 2006. He has collaborated on several projects with Endo, who completed a master’s in plastic engineering at the Kyoto Institute of Technology before establishing his studio in 2009.
The pair’s previous work includes the renovation of a typical machiya townhouse in Kyoto, which they modernised to better suit the living requirements of its occupants.
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Designer Keiji Ashizawa has created the interior of Japanese furniture brand Karimoku’s second showroom, which features a combination of its own wooden furniture and pieces by local artists and artisans.
Set in a three-storey building, the brand describes Karimoku Commons Kyoto as a “hybrid space”, which will function as a showroom and also house office spaces for employees.
The space is located inside a former machiya – a traditional Japanese wooden townhouse – in Kyoto, a city known for its temples, Shinto shrines and gardens.
The showroom is located in a Kyoto townhouseAshizawa, who has worked with Karimoku for years and also designed its first showroom in Tokyo, looked to the history of both the city and the building when designing the interior.
“I really wanted to use the language of the townhouse and also took inspiration from Kyoto gardens,” Ashizawa told Dezeen.
For the showroom’s ground floor area, he drew on the doma areas in traditional Japanese homes, which had bare dirt floors and functioned as a bridge between the indoors and the outdoors.
It features wood furniture and wood panelling by KarimokuHere, Ashizawa placed furniture in light-coloured wood, including chairs by British architect Norman Foster and pieces by Danish studio Norm Architects and Ashizawa himself.
The floor is grey concrete, which was matched by pale-grey plaster walls and a ceiling in the same colour.
Art and ceramics by Japanese artists decorate the spaceWooden slats, of a kind traditionally used in Kyoto homes and stores to let light into buildings while maintaining privacy, cover parts of the glazing at the front of the room.
Light wooden panelling by Karimoku hides built-in storage spaces and functions as a shelf.
The first floor has a darker colour paletteOn the first floor, Ashizawa chose to use a darker colour palette, with furniture pieces in smoked oak wood and flooring and wall panels in dark wood.
“When you visit a tourism house or a temple in Kyoto, the old wood, like on the temple floors, is a very dark colour,” he said. “I thought such a colour had to be the key colour [for the project].”
The layout of this area also drew on the walkways and paths of Kyoto’s temple gardens.
“It’s more of a guide to how to articulate the space,” Ashizawa explained. “We can think of the furniture as an art piece or a stone – it’s a kind of installation.”
A wall alcove functions as a tokonoma display spaceThe top floor of Karimoku Commons Kyoto will function as a “library space” and showcase the latest collections and collaborations from the contemporary Case Study, Karimoku New Standard, MAS and Ishinomaki Laboratory brands.
Throughout the showroom, earthy ceramics and rough-hewn sculptures by Japanese artists were used as decoration, which add to the organic feel brought by the wood.
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Pieces by ceramics brand Nota Shop in the nearby Shiga prefecture and vases by Kyoto artist Ai Ono were among the objects chosen for the space by stylist Yumi Nakata, who worked with Ashizawa on the project.
These were placed on tables and shelves as well as in wall recesses informed by traditional Japanese tokonoma alcoves, where homeowners would display artistic objects.
Keiji Ashizawa designed the interior of the showroom”There are so many places in which to show something,” Ashizawa said of Karimoku Commons Kyoto.
“In a traditional Japanese house, there are many spaces like this, showing paintings, ceramics or flowers, which I think is one of the beauties of the culture of the Japanese house. In many ways, we tried to make such a space.”
The top floor displays a variety of furniture piecesKarimoku, which is Japan’s largest wooden furniture brand, started out making traditional Japanese furniture.
It now also works with a number of designers on the more contemporary sub-brands Case Study, Karimoku New Standard, MAS and Ishinomaki Laboratory, which are the four brands that will be sold in the Karimoku Commons Kyoto showroom.
The Kyoto space is Karimoku’s second showroom after TokyoAshikawa hopes the space will help to promote a modern design aesthetic.
“Karimoku is trying to promote modern furniture in modern life,” he said. “I need to explain about the Japanese living space situation – for example, in 1960, sixty years ago, we didn’t have much furniture in the living space.”
“And then the modern living space came to Japan and people started buying their tables, chairs and even the sofa; it’s quite new, so people don’t necessarily understand how to use a sofa,” he added.
“Japanese living spaces can be too messy, so it’s quite nice to show them like this.”
Previous projects by Ashizawa include a curve-shaped tofu restaurant and a Blue Bottle Coffee shop in Kobe. Karimoku recently collaborated with Foster on a collection of furniture used in the architect’s Foster Retreat in Martha’s Vineyard.
The photography is by Tomooki Kengaku.
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Japanese design studios Td-Atelier and Endo Shorijo Design have renovated a century-old machiya townhouse in Kyoto with minimal interiors that intend to honour the home’s existing architecture.
Called House in Marutamachi, the Japanese house was built over 120 years ago and is arranged across two floors on a long and narrow site.
House in Marutamachi is a traditional machiya house in KyotoTucked between two other residential properties, the house is an example of the wooden machiya townhouses that were once common in Japan’s historical capital Kyoto but are now at risk of going extinct.
“Traditional Kyoto townhouses are being destroyed at a pace of 800 houses a year,” Td-Atelier explained.
“Old buildings don’t match modern life. However, we want to stop the decline of Kyoto townhouses by fusing tradition, design and new life.”
The kitchen is encased in a white volumeTd-Atelier and Endo Shorijo Design dressed House in Marutamachi’s interior with new components including sleek tiles and geometric furniture alongside materials reused from the original house, as seen in the traditional team room.
The studios retained the building’s wooden columns and beams but added white volumes to house rooms including the kitchen and study to avoid disturbing the existing architecture with harsh structural materials.
The tea room was constructed using materials reused from the original buildingThese variously sized cubes were designed to mimic the contrasting heights of buildings in a cityscape.
“The gaps and omissions created between the volume group and the existing columns, beams, walls and floors create continuity in the space,” Td-Atelier said.
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Throughout the house, Td-Atelier and Endo Shorijo Design adopted a minimal material and colour palette including a combination of light and dark woods alongside smooth concrete.
A thin, sculptural light is suspended above the timber breakfast bar on the second floor, where occupants can sit on clusters of subtle-coloured stools.
Original features were maintained in the gardenOutside, a plant-filled garden features elements from the building’s original architecture such as sandy-hued lanterns and a chōzubachi – a traditional stone water bowl historically used for washing hands before a tea ceremony.
House in Marutamachi was shortlisted for house interior of the year at the 2022 Dezeen Awards.
Dezeen recently announced the winners of this year’s interiors categories, who are now competing to win the overall interiors project of the year award.
The photography is by Matsumura Kohei.
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Japanese architect Tadao Ando has transformed a building that was once home to video game giant Nintendo into a boutique hotel.
Due to open on 1 April, Marufukuro Hotel will be located in Kyoto in a building that was occupied by Nintendo between 1933 and 1959, when the company was called Yamauchi Nintendo.
At the time, the company was a manufacturer of Japanese playing cards called “hanafuda” and Western-style playing cards called “karuta” and “toranpu”.
The building was home to Nintendo from 1933 to 1959Located in the Kagiyacho neighbourhood, just north of Kyoto railway station, the building has been unoccupied ever since Nintendo vacated it.
Ando has renovated and extended the old structure, converting it into an 18-room hotel including a restaurant, bar, spa and gym.
The building’s exterior has remained largely unchanged, retaining elements such as old Yamauchi Nintendo entrance plaques and window grilles patterned with details from the old playing cards.
Ando’s task was to reimagine the building’s interior but incorporate many of its original 1930s details, which include decorative tiling and art-deco lighting fixtures.
Art-deco details are retained in the renovationFor the annex, the architect has adopted a more modern approach with floor-to-ceiling windows and elements in raw concrete, the material he is famous for.
Photos of the completed Marufukuro Hotel have so far been kept under wraps, but the hotel is already taking bookings and has released some visuals showing layout and furniture details in the guest rooms.
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Guests can choose to stay in either the old or new parts of the building, in rooms ranging in size between 33 and 79 square metres.
The project is backed by property developer Plan Do See.
Tadao Ando converted the existing building into an 18-room hotelAndo is among Japan’s most prolific architects. Awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1995, his best-known projects include Church of the Light and Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum.
Recent projects include the renovation of the Bourse de Commerce building in Paris, which proved controversial, and art centre Casa Wabi in Mexico.
It was recently announced that Ando is designing a Palm Springs home for reality TV star Kim Kardashian.
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Japanese practice Fumihiko Sano Studio has incorporated local craft and traditional materials into the Hishiya restaurant and guesthouse in Fukichiyama, Kyoto, which occupies a renovated 20th-century folk house, or minka. More
Hazard lines and metal shelving are some of the industrial finishes that Torafu Architects has included in bag brand Freitag’s store in Kyoto – which even includes its own workshop.Freitag’s Kyoto store, which is shortlisted in the small retail interior category of the 2020 Dezeen Awards, occupies what was formerly two separate retail units in the city’s Nakagyo-ku district.
The interiors of the store have been designed by Torafu Architects to look like Freitag’s logistics warehouse at the brand’s headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.
Top image: the store’s exterior. Above: hazard lines have been painted on some of the store’s surfaces
Industrial-style details have been incorporated throughout the 80-square-metre space, which the architecture practice said they left in a “skeleton state”. For example, black-and-yellow hazard lines have been painted around one of the store’s structural columns.
Similar lines appear beneath the green cash desk. Just opposite sits a matching rubber-topped counter where customers will be able to set down and inspect any potential purchases.
PVC flap curtains were used to screen off the shop’s storeroom, which is enclosed by a volume clad in wood-wool boards. Simple strip lights have also been fitted across the ceiling.
Freitag’s bags are displayed on metal shelves or stored in drawers
Bags are displayed on metal shelves or on top of pallets which have been stacked up in the store’s front window.
Uniform rows of drawers that run across the entire left-hand side of the store contain more Freitag bags, each of which is crafted from recycled truck tarpaulin.
The brand first removes any eyelets or straps left on the tarps before cutting, washing and turning them into a range of different bag models such as backpacks, totes or holdalls.
Freitag’s Sweat-Yourself-Shop is a tiny factory for making bags
Towards the rear of the store is a workshop, where customers will be able to experiment with using tarp offcuts themselves and turn them into a small accessory of their choice.
The store includes a workshop where customers can make their own accessories
More industrial touches appear on Freitag’s facade, where a red-steel beam has been installed in place of the wall that once divided the two retail units.
A large drawing of a truck has also been created on the store’s side elevation so that customers “never forget the origin of every unique specimen”.
The store’s side elevation features a mural of a truck
Torafu Architects was founded in 2004 by Koichi Suzuno and Shinya Kamuro. The practice’s Freitag Kyoto store will compete against four other projects in the small interior category of this year’s Dezeen Awards.
Amongst them is an Aesop store in Shinjuku, which features a contrasting mix of steel and plaster surfaces.
Also on the list is Small Icon, a tiny bakery in Yokohama that’s decorated in the same warm, golden hues as a loaf of bread.
Photography is by Taichi Ano.
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