nana’s green tea KAWASAKI LE FRONT
Kanagawa, Japan / 2013

“Border”

Nanaha Co, Ltd is a company that sends the “new form of Japan” to the world through “mattcha”. They provide high quality mattcha in menus that are arranged modernly, such as mattacha latte. The space inside the shop is desired to be a “modern tearoom”, not a “Japanese style tea room”. According to the owner, it is a way of expressing their feeling to make a shop that allows the customers to enjoy the traditional Japanese culture with a modern interpretation.

Japanese people have a unique concept of feeling a sense of border by putting just two rocks. The prime example for that is nodate, a tea ceremony that is held outdoors to enjoy the nature on a fine weather day. In actual nodate, we spread out a mat called mousen to create a psychological border between indoor and outdoor. This time, in order for the customers to be able to experience nodate within the interior, I had designed “nature” by putting numberless fiberglass sticks and created the psychological “border” needed for nodate. Moreover, I have used a lighting made of Japanese paper that resembles the moon, so that they can feel the “nature” even more in that space.

Photos by Keisuke Miyamoto