Nanaha Corporation is a company that introduces “a new form of Japan” to the world through “matcha” (powdered green tea). They arrange high grade matchas in modern style and provide them as a menu such as matcha latte. And their intention is to make the space into a “contemporary style tea room”, not a “Japanese style tea room”. This time I created a contemporary “seascape”.

The ground floor (the Courtyard Zone) of Ikspiari is set upon a theme a board of trade (hall), where weavers used to trade batiks, is now used as a world market that sells foods and knowledge from all over the world. Therefore, for nana’s green tea Ikspiari branch, I tried to express “color” by using “cloths” and the principles of “subtractive color mixing”.

“subtractive color mixing” ——- subtractive color mixing is a color mixture in which the brightness of the colors that is mixed become darker than the original colors. When you mix pigments or overlap colored glasses, the color becomes darker than the average brightness of the original colors. Since the light gets blocked for the part where the colors are overlapped, the more you overlap colors, the darker it gets. When we mix the same amount of three primary colors, purplish red (M), greenish blue (C) and yellow (Y), it becomes black (dark gray).

What I actually did was hang down laces of various colors from the ceiling. By doing so, it creates a “color” that looks like a “simple but artistic colorless color”. Moreover, from another angle, we can see the “brightly colored color” of the laces itself. Those colors turn the space into a dream-inspiring space (colorful space), which is suitable for Ikspiari.

Designed by MASAHIRO YOSHIDA / JIN HATANAKA / RIYO-TSUHATA – KAMITOPEN Architecture-Design Office co.,ltd.
Photography by Keisuke Miyamoto