WE Hotel Toya

Using wood and fabric as primary materials, the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma transformed an old nursing home on the shore of Lake Toya in Hokkaido into the beautiful boutique hotel WE hotel Toya.

Working with local cedar logs for the facade and interior, Kengo Kuma creates a relaxing space that feels like a forest of cedar trees. In contrast, the pleated fabric used in the interior generates an area like a cloth cave, from where the calm surface of Lake Toya is visible.

This project used the NC armchair (created for this project), the NC chair, and the MA sofa developed by Kengo Kuma and Time & Style, alongside the My Funny Valentine high stool from the Time & Style collection.

When Time & Style design a chair, it often creates a side chair and an armchair simultaneously from development.

However, the NC chair was initially developed as a side chair for the sophisticated Nezu Museum cafe. It was designed to be as slim as possible and have a thin seat surface, so the seat frame was not intended to have arms.

Typically, the arm extends to the front of the seat and bends down to be fixed to the seat frame and connected to the front legs but to set the arm firmly and strongly, we fixed the arm to the seat frame at a place farther back than the front of the seat.

Since the seat frame is thin, dowels are not strong enough to hold it in place, so it must be reinforced from the inside with hardware.

The NC armchair was born while maintaining the thinness and slimness of the existing NC chair.

To manufacture the NC armchair, Time & Style used one of Japan’s most technologically advanced factories.