In Hasami-cho, Nagasaki Prefecture, pottery making has flourished since the Edo period, and about 30% of the residents are involved in pottery making today. We were commissioned by Maruhiro, one of the region's leading companies specializing in porcelain production and sales, to design a mixed use facility including their flagship store. 

They wanted to create a place where local people supporting the local industry, as well as pottery fans visiting from afar, can gather spontaneously and closely experience Hasami-yaki pottery and diverse cultures. Those at Maruhiro thought that this could be achieved not by a store or museum that only serves a single purpose, but by a "park" that accommodates diverse purposes in a generous manner, and we strongly sympathized with their idea. 
Strictly speaking, a created by a private company is not a "park." 

Nevertheless, the openness that allow people of all ages and genders to freely enter and spend time as they like, and the public nature of the space created for the benefit of the community are precisely the kind of quality that a park can offer. Something that emerges out of such a place may, in turn, enliven the region and local industry, and trigger changes for the better and help solve problems including a lack of successors and declining sales. 


We started thinking about the store and cafe with a focus on the pergolas as an intermediate area between the open space and the building. A pergolas is placed at the main entrance to this facility HIROPPA, connecting the cafe and the open space.


The area around the entrance, in particular, was designed to blur the boundary between the pergola and the building and create continuity by carefully staggering the boundary between the inside and outside, as well as areas of different finishes. The cafe counter extends directly into the open space and is used as a table for terrace seating. The terrace floor is covered with ceramic stone, which is laid directly on the floor around the cafe counter. Plants and trees were planted directly on the floor in the same way as outside. Around the counter in the cafe space, tents are directly attached to the posts. The structure has no window sashes, and when the tents are unzipped, it appears to be consist only of a pergola and framework. The roof is simply a pergola topped with folded roofing so as not to create a clear boundary between the inside and outside. 




The interior elements that are made of ready-made modules, for example, platforms made of spiral ducts for air conditioning, and fixtures using components of a raised floor system for offices, can be easily downsized and expanded as needed. HIROPPA plans to continuously expand over the second and third phases, and the cafe was later named "OPEN-END,” which seems to signify the idea of making it highly adaptable to changes in the future.