"In the geothermal town of Kannawa in Beppu, Oita Prefecture, Japan, art collective 目 [mé] presents Space II (2025), an architectural-scale installation inside a house. The residence is punctured by irregular voids, their edges rough and geological, as if the building has been excavated from the inside out. What opens up beyond the facade is not an interior room but a cavern, a rupture that feels closer to a natural formation than a human-made space."
"Walls and floors dissolve into a continuous, cave-like void whose textured surfaces recall eroded stone and volcanic strata. Minimal handrails trace the path through the cavity, offering just enough guidance to move without neutralizing the experience. Light seeps in through the openings, pulling fragments of Kannawa, rooftops, streets, and passing bodies into the darkness. Visitors are invited to look back out at the world through the holes, encountering the familiar as something momentarily strange."
Space II (2025) by Japanese art collective 目 [mé] transforms a house in Kannawa, Beppu into an interior-exterior cavern by removing volume rather than adding built elements. Irregular voids puncture walls and floors, their rough, textured surfaces evoking eroded stone and volcanic strata and suggesting excavation from within. Minimal handrails guide movement without diminishing sensory intensity. Light filters through openings, framing fragments of rooftops, streets, and passing bodies and turning familiar views into momentary estrangements. Installed at the Geothermal Tourism Lab ENMA Annex, the work connects to Beppu’s volcanic history and hot-spring culture while imagining a landscape before stabilization.
Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine
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