Name: KURASHI NO KAORI Atelier in Lake Yamanaka
Location: Yamanaka, Yamanakakomura, Minamitsuru-gun, Yamanashi 401-0501 Japan
Completion: Sep.1st,2021
Program: Factory, café shop, guesthouse
Structure: Wood
Total floor area : 497.85sqm
Architect: ALA INC.
Structural enginner: Kanebako structural engineer
MEP engineer: Kankyo engineering inc.
Lighting designer: Lumimedia lab Inc.
Landscape designer: Green Wise Co., Ltd.
Contractor: Saito kensetsu
Photography: Masao Nishikawa

Concept
A factory for a fragrance company in a forest near Lake Yamanaka. The site has a fine view to Mt. Fuji and our client required café, shop and guest rooms not only factory function with a garden for enjoying the mountain view. The company creates daily fragrance products with concept of naturally, friendly integrated into human life and they hoped to create the building as “a friendly symbol” which attracts local people’s gathering.
We translated the required functions into five different sizes of box to avoid typical feeling of a big factory volume and shifted them in both of plan and section like matryoshka doll. The shifted composition allows to have the mountain views from all rooms so that we could put picture windows on gaps between the boxes. The windows are in random proportions according to room function and show different way of framed the mountain views. The five boxes have deep eaves facing to Mt.Fuji. So visitors encounter the series of the upward roof with sensitive wood rafters as “Sense of welcome”at first. A garden for playground, for growing herbs is connected to the buildings by zigzag terrace.
For interior, visitors experience that space scale becomes bigger in accordance with the depth of the building. Our basic interior design theme is simpleness and tranquility as reflection of the company’s concept in order to enjoy lchange of natural light and the mountain’s appearance moment by moment. Structural plywood walls supporting the roofs are exposed and painted in blue-green which is the company’s color making soft contrast with the orange colored eave back. Space color of 2nd floor is toned down and darker for relax guest room’s atmosphere with cozy furniture setting.