Kengo Kuma: Letting Materials Become the Starting Point of Design

01 Let the Building's Boundaries Loosen

"Anti-Object" targets the tendency for architecture to become isolated from its surroundings and turn into a mere object of viewing. It does not mean architecture cannot have form; rather, design should return part of the agency to the site: what lies in the distance, where light comes from, how people approach — all must enter the form-making process.

The 1995 "Water/Glass" project provides a clear entry point. A glass space by the sea is surrounded by water; near reflections merge with the distant horizon, making it hard for the eye to find a clean endpoint.

This is not simply replacing walls with transparent glass. Glass itself reflects; frames and columns remain. The water surface connects these hard edges into a slower transformation: the sky darkens, the sea brightens, interior lamps appear on the glass.

The project was inspired by Bruno Taut and his reading of the Katsura Imperial Villa. Kuma transformed the transitional relationships organized by eaves and verandas into metal louvers, glass, and water. Tradition here offers a method for handling inside-outside relations.

What I appreciate is the building's willingness to borrow the environment to complete itself. Yet transparency does not automatically equal comfort, and lightness does not mean an absence of complex technical conditions. Appraising such space requires seeing the structural support, shading, cleaning, and water-maintenance demands — not stopping at a single dusk photograph.

02 The Character of Materials Can Be Redesigned

The 2000 Stone Museum renovated old stone storehouses once used for rice storage and incorporated the passages between them into the space. It did not impose a single new volume over the old buildings but let several existing parts enter into new relationships.

Stone usually suggests thickness, weight, and enclosure. Here, the same Ashino stone is fashioned into horizontal louvers and masonry walls with gaps. The stone retains its weight, yet light passes through the openings in the arrangement.

From inside, the bright spots do not form one large window but scatter across the wall. The eye simultaneously reads the repetition of stone blocks, the depth of joints, and the exterior brightness. The material's character thus changes: obstruction remains, but with a perceptible layering.

This holds strong implications for product design. Instead of rushing to find a new material, one can first alter the cross-section, arrangement, connection, and spacing of a familiar material. The same metal can be a sealed shell or a set of details that let light, air, or sound pass through.

"Particleization," in my view, is most useful when it breaks a volume down to a scale the body can recognize. Its value must be proven in use; if holes only increase cleaning difficulty, or repeated components are merely expensive skin, visual lightness alone cannot justify them.

03 Grow an Entire Space from Small Joints

The 2010 GC Prostho Museum Research Center developed the combinatory logic of traditional wooden toys into a spatial system. Small-section timber members interlock; the perimeter reads as a thick mesh rather than a flat pattern applied to the surface.

The project uses roughly 60 mm square timber members. As joints repeat, the detail becomes the common language of facade, space, and display. This is why I find it more convincing than ordinary decorative grilles: from the tangible unit at hand, one can trace a continuous reading all the way to the whole.

Looking through several layers of members, light and shadow shift with the viewing angle. As a person moves one step forward, the ratio of occlusion to transparency changes. The building's complexity emerges from the unfolding of a limited rule set, not solely from a pre-drawn exotic silhouette.

The 2013 SunnyHills Minami-Aoyama shop makes the timber weaving even more distinct. The "hell joint" technique creates a diagonal grid; structural detail and spatial atmosphere pull on each other. Gaps between timber slats allow street light to enter the tasting area.

On the stairs, the body continually meets the timber slats; seated at a table, the geometry becomes shadows cast on the tabletop and floor. The reading of the design shifts from viewing the volume at a distance to experiencing it up close.

Here lies a contradiction worth keeping: such a strong woven silhouette is already a striking urban image. "Weak architecture" cannot be understood only as visually subdued. I prefer to measure it with a concrete question: does this strong form make people more willing to approach and gain a finer-grained use experience?

04 A Theory Should Also Withstand the Scale of the Palm

The 2015 TSUMIKI blocks, designed by Kuma at Ryuichi Sakamoto's invitation, consist of thin cedar open units. They transform the typical stacking of solid blocks into interlocking and balancing around voids.

The triangles are not filled solid. When picking up a piece, one can directly see how another piece passes through, leans against, or supports it. The thin members bring not only a formal difference but also a different rhythm of play.

I especially appreciate that it does not shrink architecture into a fixed model. The user can change how the rules unfold; the final silhouette is not entirely predetermined by the designer. Material, component, and participant together complete the work — this is closer to his theory than a miniature landmark.

The same open units are scaled up outdoors; the scale changes but the combinatory logic remains readable. Of course, toys and buildings have different safety, structural, and durability requirements; this resonance shows that the thinking method can migrate, not that stacking blocks directly becomes a construction answer.

05 After Leaving the Office, Continue Engaging Real Places

Koizumi Architects' founders Shinya Koizumi and Ayaka Koizumi both worked at Kuma's office from 2008–2015 and 2013–2015 respectively. This background makes them traceable continuation cases; their practice simultaneously absorbs Chinese site experience and their own educational backgrounds.

The FREITAG Shanghai store is particularly worth examining. It does not repeat the timber language but confronts an old factory, narrow alleys, and the brand's circular philosophy, advancing the renovation through retention, reinforcement, and reuse.

Demolition debris was used on-site to produce new floor tiles; construction hoarding materials were repurposed for the facade. Grey metal and bright yellow stairs compose a tool-like expression; the old building's material history is not smoothed over by a uniform luxury finish.

The ground floor houses a repair space, making the extension of product life an actual function of the shop. For such design, roughness only gains value when linked to material destinations and use modes, rather than remaining a simulated aged surface.

The same team's Meitaki House appears quiet by comparison. The veranda reorients toward the garden; when doors open, the deep-eaved transitional space gives the interior room to extend outward. Minute undulations in the wood-door processing draw attention back to the scale the hand can reach.

The two appearances differ greatly, yet the attitude toward problem-solving shares common ground: first read the existing conditions, then decide what to add. I regard this commonality as a continuation of method; however, not every detail can be attributed to Kuma.

06 Good Legacy Allows New Authors to Emerge

Shuhei Kamiya worked at Kuma's office from 2007–2016, participating in the TSUMIKI project; later he joined BIG and founded his own office in 2017. His renovation of the Hayama Kaji Residence brings us into another lineage of inheritance.

The original building was designed by Arata Endo in 1928, with a Prairie Style historical background. Kamiya's team completed renovation, interior, and furniture design in 2020; the entire old house cannot be counted as their new work, nor can it be called Kuma's architecture.

Wood-block seating arranged around a hearth on the open terrace creates varied distances through concave-convex relationships. Here there is both delicate handling of material scale and a response to the original building's spatial order formed around gathering and conversation.

The triangular stools and hexagonal tabletops were developed from the geometry recurring in the old building. Furniture was designed by Kamiya's team and produced in collaboration with Time & Style; they can be recombined, allowing the historic space to accommodate new activities.

The rear of the old house received a new bathroom function, where water, grey walls, and original timber meet. The renovation did not demand a uniform period feel throughout but decided, based on preservation condition and use needs, where to continue and where to update.

This suggests that truly vital followership gradually grows into a different appearance. Koizumi Architects faces an old factory; Kamiya faces a historic residence. What they inherit may be a sensitivity to site and material, yet their work must still answer their own questions.

Appreciating Kuma can begin with a single timber gap or a light-penetrating stone wall. Looking further, one encounters more valuable design judgments: why is the material arranged this way, is the joint necessary, what else can the old object retain, can people participate in it.

If a theory ultimately leaves only a recognizable texture, it quickly becomes a style label. Letting materials, place, and users continuously change the design outcome is the part of this thinking path worth continuing to practice.