Yo Shimada Lab, Environmental Design, KCUA

Deko-an

A Tea Room at Kitano Tenmangū Shrine

Dates

October 11–13, 2025

Venue

Kitano Tenmangū Shrine, Kyoto

Organizers

Kitano Tenmangū Shrine, Kyoto City University of Arts

Support

Kyoto Prefecture

Tea Ceremony Cooperation

Department of Japanese Food Culture, Faculty of Letters, Kyoto Prefectural University

Width

approx. 2,730 mm

Depth

approx. 2,730 mm

Height

approx. 2,500 mm

“Four and a Half Tatami Mats”
Tea rooms often employ a size that is rather unfamiliar in our everyday lives.
This limited space is not merely “small”—it is a carefully calculated size that naturally draws people closer together and makes them aware of one another’s presence.

“Touching”
We came to think that the reason tea rooms can feel intimidating is that the act of “entering” them requires a small push.
By deliberately giving the tea room no front, so that it can be entered from any direction, we aimed to create a space that anyone can casually come into “touch” with.

We hope visitors will experience here the sense of closeness to others that this size creates, and an ambiguity of boundaries rarely felt in a tea room.
Learning from the forms and history of tea rooms, we sought to express a “form” of tea room never seen before, while drawing on those precedents.