Town of Sakai S-Brand © Kawasumi・Kobayashi Kenji Photograph Office

Japan 2021Town of Sakai S-Brand HOSHIIMONO100Café

2021.5
Ibaraki
Retail/Cafe/Restaurant
Completed
106
2F

The café provides an eating area and a shop where visitors can enjoy and buy hoshi-imo or dried sweet potatoes, a specialty of Sakaimachi.

We created a screen with an image of the fiber of dried potatoes by combining louvers of locally produced wood, which performs as a device for the space to adjust its environment conditions, including sunlight-shielding.

We’ve also designed ‘Sakaimachi S-Gallery’ and ‘Sakaimachi S-Lab’ within the distance of 60m from the café to set up a network among those small dots in area, in an attempt to transform the town to a more walker-friendly place, which had been badly affected by large-scale stores built along bypass highways, a typical scene of provinces in Japan.

The project aims to connect the activity to invigorate local economy and the human-centered urban design.

Team Tessei Suma*, Chihiro Handa, Tomomi Sekiguchi, Kyoko Mase, Kimio Suzuki, Yoo Shiho Construction Chuwa Construction Cooperation Ejiri Structural Engineers Photography ©︎ Kawasumi-Kobayashi Kenji Photograph Office