House of the sacred rock
Locate in Kyoto, Japan
Design by Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP
Furniture by Time & Style
The House of Iwakura Surrounded by houses, the facade facing the street has a wooden lattice, while the interior space is a courtyard in the center of the house, which can be admired from every room. This is a space where you can feel the change of seasons and feel a close connection with nature.
The dining and lounge chairs were developed over two and a half years by Hiroshi Nakamura and Time & Style for this space, which combines the beauty of Japanese wooden architecture with a reverence for nature. The chairs have a small spatiality, structured horizontally and vertically, like a Japanese wooden structure.
In the pursuit of comfort and usability, the back legs, where the toes touch when turning to the front, and the front legs, where the heel touches when sitting, have been cut at an angle. This is reminiscent of the “bamboo shoot” design, in which the base of the log of the floor post is chamfered at an angle.
The bamboo shoots have been colored, polished, and repainted to create a beautiful cut surface.
The seat’s design, which seems to float above the chair’s frame, was made possible by calculating the thickness of the components of the structure and the way they are joined together to ensure strength.
In addition, the arms can be hung over the table to raise the chair off the floor for easier cleaning under the table. Just as cleaning is one of the practices of a Zen temple, Nakamura believes that beautifying and purifying a place is a philosophical and religious practice of how we live. It is a chair for life, to clean the area and live in harmony with nature.
