A wooden floor that curves up to turn out to be a wall allows light and air to movement through this bathhouse by Japanese studio Kubo Tsushima Architects.
Set within a 17th-century hotel complex in Japan’s Gunma prefecture, Maruhon Ryokan was redesigned by Kubo Tsushima Architects as part of a extended-phrase plan to attract tourists and promote sustainability in the area.
“The existing building has been extended and reconstructed numerous instances, and has a complex geometry with linked-accommodations,” architect Hidekai Kubo advised Dezeen. “This bathhouse is on the node of the pass which connects two wings of accommodation.”
From street level, the bathhouse seems to adhere to a classic form comprehensive with a gabled roof. But on the within, a floor constructed from Japanese cedar curves up to produce a wall that separates a bathroom and a designated rest area.
Making use of computational fluid dynamics – a variety of mechanics that uses numerical examination and algorithms to resolve and analyse fluid flow – the architects designed the uncommon interior to produce buoyancy-driven ventilation.
“We applied the behaviour of ventilation to the design so that the all-natural wind from the bathroom window rises when heated by the spring water, and goes out from the roof window,” Kubo explained.
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The shape of the wall generates a light source, diffusing daylight flooding in by means of the open facade into the reduced-level bathroom. LEDs illuminate the area at night.
In the downstairs bathroom, spring water flows from a black bamboo tap into a small pool that is submerged into the floor.
Along with supplying the lighting and ventilation for the bathhouse, the curved wall also acts as a backrest for a big bench in the upper-level rest area.
“To construct the bench, we employed Japanese cypress wood,” said Kubo. “It has pleasant aroma, and it makes men and women relaxed who recline on the bench following bathing.”
Kubo Tsushima Architects previously renovated a wedding chapel in Tokyo’s Ebisu district – painting each and every windowsill in colours of the rainbow to “impart faint hues” as light filters by way of.
