ARCHITECTURE
Our architecture seeks to bring space, material and light into careful alignment with the lives that inhabit them. Each project begins with a close reading of its context—natural, cultural and architectural—allowing buildings to respond sensitively to their setting and to adapt over time.
Rather than imposing form, we focus on refining what is essential. Through measured compositions and clear spatial sequences, we create environments that feel both structured and open. Our work spans private homes, cultural buildings and landscapes, with an emphasis on spaces that support everyday life while remaining calm and generous. Collaboration is central to our process. We work closely with clients, craftsmen and consultants to ensure that intentions are translated precisely into built form. The result is architecture that feels thoughtful rather than conventional —places shaped by use, material and time, and able to grow naturally with those who occupy them.
Unsere Architektur strebt danach, Raum, Material und Licht sorgfältig auf das Leben der Menschen abzustimmen, die darin leben. Jedes Projekt beginnt mit einer genauen Betrachtung seines natürlichen, kulturellen und architektonischen Kontexts, damit die Gebäude sensibel auf ihre Umgebung reagieren und sich im Laufe der Zeit anpassen können.
Anstatt Formen aufzuzwingen, konzentrieren wir uns darauf, das Wesentliche zu verfeinern. Durch ausgewogene Kompositionen und klare räumliche Abläufe schaffen wir Umgebungen, die sowohl strukturiert als auch offen wirken. Unsere Arbeit umfasst Privathäuser, Kulturgebäude und Landschaften, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf Räumen liegt, die das tägliche Leben unterstützen und gleichzeitig ruhig und grosszügig sind. Zusammenarbeit ist ein zentraler Bestandteil unseres Prozesses. Wir arbeiten eng mit Kunden, Handwerkern und Beratern zusammen, um sicherzustellen, dass die Absichten präzise in die gebaute Form umgesetzt werden. Das Ergebnis ist eine Architektur, die eher durchdacht als konventionell wirkt – Orte, die durch Nutzung, Material und Zeit geprägt sind und mit ihren Bewohnern auf natürliche Weise wachsen können.
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Latest Projects in Progress
Retreat Residence in the Landscape | Portugal
Type: New Building, Renovation & Landscaping | Site Area: 50,000m2, Building Area: 1,400m2
Status: Planning
Multifamily Residence by Lake Zurich | Zurich, Switzerland
Type: New Building,＆ Garden | Site Area: 1,300m2, Building Area: 650m2
Status: Planning
Residence in Grade II Listed Building | London, United Kingdom
Type: Interior Renovation & Garden | Floor Area: 200m2
Status: Planning
Cultural Accommodation | Kyoto, Japan
Design and Project Management | Site Area: 160m2, Building Area: 540m2
Status: Planning
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RESIDENTIAL & HOSPITALITY
DAWN AT THE LAKESIDE・暁庭 (Akatsuki-tei)
Zurich, Switzerland | Terrace Area: 100m2 | GardenArea: 375m2 | 2021~2023
SWISS CHALET RESIDENCE
Crans-Montana, Switzerland | Floor Area: 120m2 | 2020~2022
A weekend home in Crans-Montana transforms a 1960s chalet into an intimate interior landscape for a European family. Overlooking the Rhône Valley and Alpine mountains, the renovation draws out the potential of existing spaces through natural light, timber craftsmanship and carefully calibrated atmosphere. The design responds to the client’s long relationship with the place, bringing together family life, art and memory. Wood-lined rooms, angled screens and warm transition spaces shape shifting experiences between day and night, openness and enclosure. Rather than replacing the chalet’s character, the project refines it into a quiet contemporary retreat rooted in place, memory and craft.
ALTITUDE 1800
Crans-Montana, Switzerland | Site Area: 1000m2 | Floor Area: 100m2 | Completed in 2024
At 1800 metres in the Swiss Alps of Valais, this mountain retreat reflects a dialogue between nature and architecture. Designed to invite the landscape into daily life, the interiors balance wood, stone, and clay - each element connecting to alpine views, grounding visitors in the essence of the place. The design blends alpine character with Japanese-inspired clarity, fostering a vivid connection to the surrounding landscape.
LIVING WITH ART
Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, France | Floor Area: 100m2 | 2022~2025
Located in the district of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, Du Bac is the residence of a contemporary art collector, conceived as a quiet vessel for living with art. An existing apartment was stripped back and unified in white, transforming walls, ceilings and original timber beams into a continuous architectural backdrop. Rather than creating a neutral void, the project embraces subtle material expression: finely textured joinery, faint traces of the existing fabric, and handcrafted imperfections remain visible beneath the white finish. Every surface quietly recedes, allowing artworks, furniture and everyday objects to become the primary occupants of the space. The result is an interior where architecture withdraws, giving presence to light, art and the passage of time.
KYODO HOUSE
Kyodo, Tokyo | Floor Area: 165m2 | 2015
As a director of Architecture in SANDWICH Inc.
Kyodo House in Tokyo is a single-family residence designed to make natural energy part of everyday life. Centred on a south-facing living room and organised through overlapping boxes, the house gathers winter sunlight and channels summer breezes through a study that acts as a ventilation tower. Reused Japanese timber forms a warm, contemporary exterior inspired by Kohei Nawa’s Direction paintings, while the central atrium, large bookshelves and sunken event space shape a generous interior for living, reading and gathering. Conceived also as a share house, it connects domestic life with art, permaculture, community, ecology and a low-energy collective urban lifestyle.
KYO-TANGO HOTEL
Kyo-Tango, Kyoto, Japan| Floor Area: 800m2 | 2022~
A long-stay hotel on Kyoto’s Tango peninsula invites guests to slow down and enter the rhythm of the region. Surrounded by terraced rice fields, forests and traditional thatch-roofed Minka houses, it is conceived as more than a place to stay. It creates a quiet threshold between hospitality, landscape and local life, encouraging meaningful encounters with the community, its crafts, food and seasonal traditions. Through an atmosphere rooted in nature and memory, the hotel offers guests time to observe, participate and connect, carrying home not only rest and enduring memories, but a deeper understanding of the region’s culture, people and place.
ART & CULTURE
KOHTEI・洸庭
Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan | Site Area: 4700m2 | Floor Area: 796m2 | Completed in 2016
Kohtei is a pavilion for a Zen temple, conceived as a vessel for light, memory and perception. Built beside Shinshoji Temple in Fukuyama, Japan, its timber hull is formed from thousands of hand-laid shingles, recalling both a boat and a sacred threshold. Approached across a quiet landscape, the structure appears suspended between craft and abstraction. Inside, visitors enter a dark, still chamber where water and projected light dissolve the boundaries of space. Rather than offering architecture as an object, Kohtei creates an immersive experience of silence, reflection and time, connecting Japanese tradition with a contemporary search for atmosphere, precision, wonder and depth.
As a director of Architecture in SANDWICH Inc.
BAMBOO SERENADE
County Hall London, London, UK | Site Area: 670m2 | Floor Area: 20m2 | Completed in 2020
A temporary concert stage created for an NHS charity performance by classical guitarist Alexandra Whittingham in London. Supported by County Hall Arts, London, the stage is built entirely from bamboo poles, opening into a wave-like arch inspired by the River Thames, wind, movement and music. White ropes hold each rafter in tension, recalling guitar strings, while light, sound, weather and the city become part of the choreography. After the performance, the rafters close vertically like a bamboo screen, allowing the stage to be dismantled, stored and reused as a sustainable architectural instrument for future open-air public performances and events.
PARASOPHIA TICJET BOOTH
Parasophia Art Festival, Kyoto, Japan | Floor Area: 20m2 | Completed in 2015
As a director of Architecture in SANDWICH Inc.
A temporary concert stage created for an NHS charity performance by classical guitarist Alexandra Whittingham in London. Supported by County Hall Arts, London, the stage is built entirely from bamboo poles, opening into a wave-like arch inspired by the River Thames, wind, movement and music. White ropes hold each rafter in tension, recalling guitar strings, while light, sound, weather and the city become part of the choreography. After the performance, the rafters close vertically like a bamboo screen, allowing the stage to be dismantled, stored and reused as a sustainable architectural instrument for future open-air public performances and events.
SANDWICH ART STUDIO
Kyoto, Japan | Floor Area: 440m2 | Completed in 2009
A former sandwich factory in Kyoto is transformed into SANDWICH, the initiative studio of multidisciplinary artist Kohei Nawa and a creative platform for contemporary art. The renovation brings architects, artists and students into a shared environment of making, with production studios, offices, a kitchen and places to stay. Conceived as a flexible and neutral framework, the space allows work, exchange and daily life to overlap without fixing a single identity. Over time, artworks, material traces and collective use become part of the architecture, turning the building into a living studio shaped by process, collaboration, energy, shared discovery and evolving practice.
ART GALLERY
STUART LOCHHEAD SCLUPTURE GALLERY
Old Bond Street, London, UK | Floor Area: 100m2 | Completed in 2024
Set within a Grade II listed building on Old Bond Street, London, this gallery for Stuart Lochhead Sculpture creates an intimate world for pre-nineteenth-century masterpiece sculpture. Rather than treating the space as a neutral container, the renovation works with the building’s arched windows, proportions and layered history. Visitors move from the public life of the street through an ochre entrance, library, office and main gallery, where knowledge, research and artworks converge. Timber passages, sliding screens and framed views shape a measured sequence, allowing works to be displayed, studied, discussed and lived with in an atmosphere of depth, focus and memory.
GYRE GALLERY
Omote-sando, Tokyo, Japan | Floor Area: 35m2 | Completed in 2019 | in collaboration with Hildebrand
Located on the third floor of GYRE in Omotesando, Tokyo, the gallery is conceived as an experimental platform for contemporary art and cultural expression. Four gallery spaces are arranged around a circular sequence, drawing visitors into a spiral movement of looking, feeling and understanding. At its centre, an installation gallery allows artists to express the core of each exhibition, while surrounding rooms open towards the external environment, allowing the city to become part of the experience. The project transforms circulation into atmosphere, creating a layered journey where art, time and space are encountered from multiple perspectives within Tokyo’s creative landscape.
LARKIN ERDMANN GALLERY
Zurich, Switzerland | Floor Area: 35m2 | Completed in 2025
An art gallery in Zurich’s Hirschengraben art district is renovated as an intimate setting for 20th-century art. Located near Kunsthaus Zurich, the 35-square-metre space supports Larkin Erdmann’s carefully curated exhibitions, developed with foundations, estates and families to reveal the depth of each artist’s work. Rather than relying only on the neutrality of white walls, the design introduces a finely crafted timber feature wall that brings warmth, rhythm and presence to the room. White surfaces and wood enter into quiet dialogue, creating a focused atmosphere where visitors can slow down, encounter artworks closely and form lasting connections with art and place.
TEFAF MAASTRICHT - STUART LOCHHEAD SCLUPTURE
Maastricht, Holland | Floor Area: 70m2 | 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026
An art gallery in Zurich’s Hirschengraben art district is renovated as an intimate setting for 20th-century art. Located near Kunsthaus Zurich, the 35-square-metre space supports Larkin Erdmann’s carefully curated exhibitions, developed with foundations, estates and families to reveal the depth of each artist’s work. Rather than relying only on the neutrality of white walls, the design introduces a finely crafted timber feature wall that brings warmth, rhythm and presence to the room. White surfaces and wood enter into quiet dialogue, creating a focused atmosphere where visitors can slow down, encounter artworks closely and form lasting connections with art and place.
RETAIL
JAPAN HOUSE, LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles, U.S.A. | Floor Area: 35m2 | Completed in 2025
as director of Architecture in SANDWICH.Inc.
Japan House Los Angeles presents Japanese culture in Hollywood, beside the Dolby Theatre where the Academy Awards are held. Initiated by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the project forms a refined platform for exhibition, retail and public programmes. The second floor brings together a flexible white-cube gallery and shop, able to support lectures, video screenings, workshops and changing cultural displays. Within an international urban context, the space balances clarity, adaptability and restraint, allowing contemporary Japanese creativity, craft and ideas to be encountered with precision. The project offers visitors a quiet threshold between everyday city life and Japan’s evolving cultural imagination.
NEMIKA HIROO STORE
Tokyo, Japan | Floor Area: 165m2 | Completed in 2014
NEMIKA Flagship Store in Tokyo is a concept store for fashion brand Leilian, bringing together clothing, flowers and a gentle domestic atmosphere. Its name draws from root, fruit and flower, and the interior translates this image into an environment shaped by earth and water. Soft curved walls and fluid furniture guide movement through the shop, while timber floors and ceilings create warmth, intimacy and ease. Rather than presenting retail as display alone, the project forms a calm landscape of circulation, encounter and discovery, where fashion, nature and material softness come together in a welcoming contemporary space for visitors and clients.
MODERN MEDIA HQ
Shanghai, China | Floor Area: 1200m2 | Completed in 2017
Modern Media Headquarters transforms part of a former car assembly factory in Shanghai into a layered creative workplace for China’s largest magazine publishing company. Within the city’s emerging creative district, the project brings together office, showroom, photography gallery and bookshop functions, allowing media production, display and public encounter to overlap. At its heart, an eighteen-metre-high entrance hall shifts character between weekday office space and a weekend bookshop where visitors can enjoy coffee, images and printed culture. The renovation gives industrial scale an open civic role, creating a flexible platform for contemporary publishing, photography, exchange and urban cultural life in Shanghai.
IMA CONCEPT STORE
Tokyo, Japan | Floor Area: 480m2 | Completed in 2014
as director of Architecture in SANDWICH.Inc.
IMA Concept Store in Roppongi, Tokyo, reimagines the experience of photography through the idea of “living with photography”. Combining gallery, bookshop and café within one continuous interior, the project dissolves clear boundaries between looking, reading, gathering and everyday use. Rather than separating programmes, spaces overlap and shift, allowing visitors to encounter photography as culture, object, image and social atmosphere. At the end of the gallery, a rotating “Rudder Wall” steers the character of the space, transforming it for exhibitions, events or shop use. The project creates a flexible platform for contemporary photographic culture in shared daily urban life and exchange.