Location: Barbican Centre, London, U.K.

Status: Completed February 2017

Collaborators: MArch Unit 5 Kingston University, led by Takeshi Hayatsu and Jim Reed.

Photography & Videography: Ben Tynegate

The Fujimori Teahouse is a 1:1 installation commissioned by the Barbican Centre in London for the exhibition ‘The Japanese House: Life and Architecture after 1945’ (March 2017). Designed by Japanese Architect and Historian Terunobu Fujimori, the project was developed and built by postgraduate students and tutors from Kingston School of Art under the guidance of Takeshi Hayatsu. 

Guests are invited to the teahouse through an undersized gate which, like the teahouse itself, is clad using ‘Yakisugi’; a traditional Japanese charring technique used to preserve timber. The structure, elevated atop of four chestnut stilts and oak beams invites guests to firstly remove their shoes before entering the contrasting plastered interior through a hand-crafted timber ladder. Large enough to accommodate six people, users leave their shoes in a shoebox to the right of the entrance before being welcomed to sit around the central hearth used for tradition tea ceremonies. The white plastered interior that is decorated using charcoal is 3 x 3 m, based on the size of four and a half tatami mats, a standardised size established in Japan over 400 years ago.