The Seto Inland Sea has received renewed attention as one of Japan's original landscapes after COVID. From the project site, you can enjoy panoramic views of the beautiful Seto Inland Sea and its countless islands, with boats floating in the water as if swimming in the clouds. The main house, tea house, guest room, and dining room are built in different designs from top to the bottom on a slope overlooking the seascape to the south. This time, we built two new buildings among them, keeping in mind not to disrupt the landscape and nature. The first building is called DOKUBO, which in Japanese originally means a solitary confinement. For this building, however, we changed the meaning by replacing the Chinese letter for "bo" from a cell to forget and defined DOKUBO as a place to get away from the bustle of the city and reconnect with one's inner self. The second building, EL AMIGO, is named after a bar in Tokyo. The owner frequently visits this long-established bar, famous for its backing band that makes anyone feel like a great singer. Both buildings were placed to enjoy the views of the Seto Inland Sea.

DOKUBO began with the client's desire to incorporate a "zazen-do" lifestyle. The Japanese idea of Zen is to face oneself, unify one's spirit, and practice zazen. The zazen-do is a place for Zen practice, a space without any unnecessary objects, based on the concept of half a tatami mat when awake and one tatami mat when asleep (1 tatami = approx. 1820 mm x 910 mm), and of distancing oneself from worldly possessions in an age overflowing with things. As if to sneak into the basement, a spiral staircase descends from the roof, which is on the same floor level as the dining room in the main building, and a dark corridor leads to an approach into the seven narrow units. EL AMIGO, buried in the slope, is a place like a hole in the wall. The concrete walls, poured using straw formwork, appear rough at first glance but have an irregular natural look. Combined with the translucent roof transmitting soft light like a Japanese shoji screen, they create a peaceful space, unlike ordinary bare concrete rooms.

The building of DOKUBO consists of a steel roof covered with soil discharged from site development to enhance thermal insulation, and plywood units with thermal insulation are inserted under the roof of the raised building to make a double roof to reduce the heat load. Inside the dwelling units, you can open sash windows and crawl-through windows to let in the Seto Inland Sea breezes to flow from north to south, creating a comfortable interior environment that does not require air conditioning even in the summer. The reinforced concrete interior of EL AMIGO stores solar heat from the roof in winter, keeping it warm even at night. In summer, the semi-subterranean space creates a comfortable indoor environment with a concrete floor cooled by the low underground temperature. The windows on the south side can be fully opened to let in the breeze.