Sloping earthen roof tops waiting area for Japanese tea room by Kurosawa Kawara-Ten
Local studio Kurosawa Kawara-Ten has completed a waiting area for the Sekiyuan tea room in Chiba, Japan, sheltering it with a textured roof of mortar and soil that will be gradually overgrown with moss.
Named Sekiyuan Waiting Area, the small timber pavilion contains a timber bench and was self-built by Kurosawa Kawara-Ten with the tea room's master, who is also a ceramicist and artist.
The studio's founder, Kenichi Kurosawa, described this DIY approach as part of an attempt to reintroduce a sense of the handcrafted into the city's architecture, celebrating skills that he feels are at risk of being lost.
"When building an addition to an existing, functional structure, there is no urgent, life-or-death necessity. This allows the action of building itself to become the purpose," Kurosawa told Dezeen.
"Currently, Japanese society faces a severe shortage of skilled building artisans. This project challenges the creation of new, distinct expressions of locality within the suburbs," he explained.
"In this context, whether DIY can become architecture and connect to culture is a major issue that will shape the future architectural environment."
Sekiyuan Waiting Area is framed by a narrow passage that leads from the nearby street into the tea room's garden, forming part of a ceremonial entrance route known as the roji.
This garden was designed by landscape designer Takeda-ya Sakuteiten and uses salvaged rocks and tiles as paving.
A wooden fence at the edge of the site forms the back of the waiting area, which was built from four slender timber supports that sit on concrete and stone blocks.
The angled form of the pavilion aligns with a raised timber deck outside the tea house, while the steep slope of its roof was designed to evoke the feeling of passing through a nijiri-guchi – the traditional crawlspace used to enter tea rooms.
This roof was coated with a mixture of mortar and soil excavated from the garden, which was lightly brushed to create a texture that will invite moss growth over time.
"[The roof] reflects the tea ceremony culture's appreciation for rustic charm, its placement within a garden space emulating nature, and the intention for moss to grow over time, deepening its aesthetic appeal," Kurosawa explained.
"This practice also originates from the tradition of crafting tea ceremony instruments from wild plants and trees."
Other projects by Kurosawa Kawara-Ten featured on Dezeen include the transformation of a vacant house in Ichihara City into a workspace, using recycled and local materials.
Elsewhere in Japan, studios Onomiau and 2m26 recently collaborated on a shingle-covered tea room for one sits in Kyoto mountains.
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