Borrowed Scenery: Miyato Salt Farm
Miyato Island, Japan
Client
N/A
Status
Research
Scale
Cultural
Typology
Cultural
Awards
- SOM Fellowship Award
- RIBA President Medal Nominee
- EUMies Young Talent Award Shortlist
This proposal is for a salt farm onsen [lit. hot springs] that will help facilitate the restoration of Miyato Island after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and the subsequent Tsunami in Eastern Japan.
The devastated islandhave an unrivalled beauty that still commands a certain respect from the locals for which it once provided them with industry and cultural identity. However, a seawall project drafted up by the Japanese government is being constructed to provide protection for the people in coastal Japan; averaging around 10 metres high - blocking out views out towards the sea, putting the island’s identity of being of unparalleled natural beauty at stake. This lyrical proposal explores the relationship of government’s ambition and the island’s integrity; the project does not seek to challenge but rather to synthesize the two seemingly opposing aspects.
The architectural intervention: a salt terrace farm/seawall landscape and an open salt hot springs; it seeks also totrace back the regional vernacular of rural Japan which has undergone a nativising discourse of hypermodernity. The project seeks to do two things: to preserve and protect the identity of the island as well as to establish a conclusion which incorporated the ideals of both the locals and the government’s seawall scheme.The proposal wishes to be an impetus for future development concerning the empirical experience and a call for the notion of what is preservation and heritage.
The devastated islandhave an unrivalled beauty that still commands a certain respect from the locals for which it once provided them with industry and cultural identity. However, a seawall project drafted up by the Japanese government is being constructed to provide protection for the people in coastal Japan; averaging around 10 metres high - blocking out views out towards the sea, putting the island’s identity of being of unparalleled natural beauty at stake. This lyrical proposal explores the relationship of government’s ambition and the island’s integrity; the project does not seek to challenge but rather to synthesize the two seemingly opposing aspects.
The architectural intervention: a salt terrace farm/seawall landscape and an open salt hot springs; it seeks also totrace back the regional vernacular of rural Japan which has undergone a nativising discourse of hypermodernity. The project seeks to do two things: to preserve and protect the identity of the island as well as to establish a conclusion which incorporated the ideals of both the locals and the government’s seawall scheme.The proposal wishes to be an impetus for future development concerning the empirical experience and a call for the notion of what is preservation and heritage.
