The M Art Gallery , Okayama Prefecture
(2009, planning/conception only)

This is a sketch for a plan to build a private art gallery in a mountain community of around 50 homes. Located in a beautiful setting comprising rows of traditional wood houses on slopes with terraced fields, the art gallery proprietor also owned an old house (left edge of the sketch) on a slope at the entrance to the community, around 150 meters west from the gallery (right edge). Since this house had such an attractive location and appearance, we proposed a plan to convert the path starting from the house into an approach leading to the art gallery and community. Although this idea didn’t come to fruition, we believe that towns and life itself can become richer if we can make proposals not only for individual buildings but entire communities while drawing out the hidden attractions of those communities. This was the spark that inspired Rokukaku-ya to actively seek and take on such projects. This experience of envisioning a community from a single building underpinned our efforts to engage in the reconstruction planning of Tohoku following the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.