Industrial Wire Mesh Transforms Traditional Tea House - Yanko Design

"There's something deeply poetic about watching light pass through layers of colored wire mesh, each one adding a new dimension of color and shadow until you're not quite sure where the walls end and the air begins. That's exactly what Japanese architect Moriyuki Ochiai wants you to experience with his latest installation, a tea ceremony house that reimagines one of Japan's most sacred cultural traditions through an unexpectedly industrial material."

"The traditional tea house has always been about creating a contained microcosm, a small world where every detail is carefully considered to heighten your awareness and bring you into the present moment. Ochiai respects that fundamental principle but completely reframes how it works. Rather than using solid boundaries to create enclosure, he uses layered transparency. The result is something that feels simultaneously open and intimate, grounded and ethereal."

Moriyuki Ochiai wrapped a tea ceremony house in layers of diamond-shaped colored wire mesh, replacing traditional wooden walls and paper screens with industrial material. The layered mesh produces transmitted, reflected, and diffused light that alters interior color and shadow continuously. Visitors experience changing optical depth and spatial ambiguity as movement and viewpoint transform color configurations. The installation preserves the tea house's contained microcosm by using layered transparency instead of solid enclosure, creating a space that feels simultaneously open, intimate, grounded, and ethereal. The contrast between ritual tradition and utilitarian material heightens sensory awareness and invites active participation.

Read at Yanko Design - Modern Industrial Design News