{"id":362996,"date":"2026-01-10T16:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T16:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/362996\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T16:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T16:10:13","slug":"sloping-earthen-roof-tops-sekiyuan-waiting-area-by-kurosawa-kawara-ten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/362996\/","title":{"rendered":"Sloping earthen roof tops Sekiyuan waiting area by Kurosawa Kawara-Ten"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local studio Kurosawa Kawara-Ten<\/a> has completed a waiting area for the Sekiyuan tea room in Chiba<\/a>, Japan, sheltering it with a textured roof of mortar and soil<\/a> that will be gradually overgrown with moss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Named Sekiyuan Waiting Area, the small timber pavilion contains a timber bench and was self-built by Kurosawa Kawara-Ten<\/a> with the tea room’s master, who is also a ceramicist and artist.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"TeaKurosawa Kawara-Ten has created a waiting area for Sekiyuan tea room<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“In this context, whether DIY can become architecture and connect to culture is a major issue that will shape the future architectural environment.”<\/p>\n

\"SekiyuanThe angled shelter contains a bench<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

This garden was designed by landscape designer Takeda-ya Sakuteiten and uses salvaged rocks and tiles as paving.<\/p>\n

\"JapaneseIts roof is designed to be overgrown by moss<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013\u00a0the traditional crawlspace used to enter tea rooms.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Le<\/p>\n

Shingle-covered tea room for one sits in Kyoto mountains\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

“[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.<\/p>\n

“This practice also originates from the tradition of crafting tea ceremony instruments from wild plants and trees.”<\/p>\n

\"SekiyuanA garden fence doubles as the back of the waiting area<\/p>\n

Other projects by Kurosawa Kawara-Ten featured on Dezeen include the transformation of a vacant house in Ichihara City into a workspace,<\/a> using recycled and local materials.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Japan, studios Onomiau and 2m26 recently collaborated on a shingle-covered tea room<\/a> for one sits in Kyoto mountains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local studio Kurosawa Kawara-Ten has completed a waiting area for the Sekiyuan tea room in Chiba, Japan, sheltering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,48892,1120,96,386,36097,108725,73132,17784,40339,40340,136610,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-362996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-chiba","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-japan","15":"tag-japanese-architecture","16":"tag-kurosawa-kawara-ten","17":"tag-moss","18":"tag-pavilions","19":"tag-sectionall","20":"tag-sectionarchitecture","21":"tag-soil","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}