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Our Architectural Works #7

CHASHITSU in an Office, Tokyo

High in a Tokyo tower, a working office opens onto a tea room and a garden path.
Where meetings are held, the quiet of tea sets the pace.

A planted courtyard with a stone pagoda meets a seating platform, the city faint beyond, work and garden in one Japanese office.

On a single floor of a Tokyo high-rise, an office trades glass and metal for cedar, earthen walls and tatami.

A tea room with a sunken hearth sits beside a meeting space, reached along a path of stepping stones set with a stone lantern and a water basin.
Natural timber posts, shoji with asanoha kumiko and a band of soft clerestory light lend the air of a free-standing tea house, indoors.

Completed in 2022, as ideas about the workplace were shifting, it makes room for conversation and decisions held with the composure of tea.

A stone well with rope pulley and wooden buckets sits along a corridor lined with horsetail, a stone pagoda beyond.

A quiet path between gardens

A stone-paved passage runs between a well on one side and a gravel garden with a bench on the other.

On a single office floor, the time of an old town lane quietly returns.

A tea room at dusk, its sunken hearth laid with utensils and a low latticed window glowing at floor level.

A hearth, high above the city

A natural post rises beside a hearth set into the tatami, while paper screens hold a faint trace of the city.
The gestures of tea and the metropolis meet in one room.

A narrow roji at night, stepping stones passing bamboo fences toward the chashitsu, lit low by a garden lantern.

Along the roji at night

Stepping stones pass between bamboo fences, lit low by a single lantern.

The short roji to the room sets the mind for what follows.

Close view of a hand-split timber shingle roof and its copper edge, built indoors as a feat of Japanese architecture.

A real roof, built indoors

A roof of hand-split timber shingles is built right inside the room.
A copper eave and soft lights trace the shadows of the night.

  • A long timber bench with round cushions faces a dry garden of rocks and raked gravel, a red curtain at the far end.
  • A stone-paved corridor runs between dry gravel gardens and benches, a street of Japanese architecture on a single floor.
  • A stone-paved passage flanked by a well and a gravel garden with a stone marker, Japanese architecture filling a single high floor.
  • Looking from the corridor toward the rooms, a stone lantern and stepping stones cross a bed of white gravel.
  • A stone well with rope pulley and wooden buckets sits along a corridor lined with horsetail, a stone pagoda beyond.
  • A planted courtyard with a stone pagoda meets a seating platform, the city faint beyond, work and garden in one Japanese office.
  • A tiered stone pagoda stands among greenery in a planted courtyard, beside a glazed wall and a reed blind.
  • A raked gravel garden with a stone marker and a cushioned bench before woven screens, restrained Japanese architecture.
  • An engawa runs past a courtyard garden, with ginkgo-patterned sliding doors framing the rooms, layered Japanese architecture.
  • A gourd-shaped opening in an earthen wall reveals the bamboo lattice behind, beneath a woven bamboo ceiling.
  • Glimpsed between lattice panels, an iron kettle and tea bowls wait on a counter, the tools of chashitsu.
  • Close view of a hand-split timber shingle roof and its copper edge, built indoors as a feat of Japanese architecture.
  • Three woven lattice panels stand open before a timber table, a natural post rising at the right.
  • The cut end of a timber log post meets a beam above woven panels, a joint detail of Japanese architecture.
  • A tea bowl and bamboo whisk rest on a red lacquer tray, with a kettle and ladle set for matcha at the chashitsu.
  • A solid-timber meeting table faces woven lattice screens and a courtyard of horsetail and stone in the Japanese office.
  • A long meeting table on a timber platform set within raked gravel, screened by woven panels, a Japanese office room.
  • A live-edge table and woven-paper chairs before a green-tiled wall and a hanging scroll, a quiet corner of the Japanese office.
  • Woven-paper chairs at a live-edge table beneath a rolled reed blind, with horsetail planting lit along the platform edge.
  • A mizuya preparation alcove lined with shelves of tea bowls, ceramics and bamboo tools under soft light.
  • Close detail of a bamboo reed blind hung above open woven-twig lattice panels.
  • A narrow roji at night, stepping stones passing bamboo fences toward the chashitsu, lit low by a garden lantern.
  • Stepping stones lead along a softly lit garden path at night, a quiet passage of Japanese architecture.
  • A roji garden of stepping stones, a stone lantern and a water basin, framed by reed walls, Japanese architecture brought indoors.
  • Four paper sliding screens below a wave-cut transom, set under a timber-board ceiling.
  • Looking up to a sloped bamboo-and-timber ceiling and an arched opening, the craft of Japanese architecture overhead.
  • The chashitsu opens through paper screens to a hint of the city beyond, a hearth and natural post anchoring the tatami room.
  • A tea room at dusk, its sunken hearth laid with utensils and a low latticed window glowing at floor level.
  • Interior of the chashitsu with a sunken hearth set into the tatami and a natural central post.
  • Tea bowl, whisk and bamboo wares arranged on a lacquer stand before an asanoha screen, ready for chashitsu.
  • Grained timber boards wrap a wall and ceiling around a small square paper window that glows from within.
  • Through a lattice, a hanging scroll and a single flower in a bamboo vase rest in a dim alcove beside a round window.
  • A low window frames a stone lantern in a small inner courtyard garden, seen from the tatami edge.
  • Close view of a timber bench below a glowing asanoha-patterned paper screen, with a slender natural post.
  • A wooden waiting bench beside a stepping-stone path, set for guests arriving at the chashitsu.
  • Seen through a paper-screen opening, a stone well with a rope pulley and wooden buckets stands against an earthen wall.

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