Mountain Gazing
Typology: Hospitality Architecture
Client: Private Developer
Visuals: Mana China
Site: Yakushima, Japan
Year: 2026
A villa designed to
venerate the mountains
The site on Yakushima Island occupies a unique position on a mountain slope, offering unobstructed views of the surrounding mountains, which have long been revered as the island’s source of life and a place of ritual and pilgrimage. The landscape is majestic and powerful, creating a strong sense that humans are guests within it.
The architecture responds by allowing the mountains to become the primary architect. The villa is oriented entirely toward them, following the natural slope of the terrain, emerging organically from the ground and elevating from it to keep the nature flowing underneath.
Each room faces towards the mountains, borrowing the landscape to dissolve the boundary between inside and outside. Despite this primary orientation, each view is unique and changes constantly, shaped by elevation, vegetation, and shifting weather. As mist, light, rain, sun and seasons transform the scenery, the villa becomes a vessel for venerating the ever- changing mountains and experiencing time, nature, and the layered ecology of Yakushima.
Lifting the villa
to leave the ground permeable
On Yakushima, the abundant rainfall sustains the island’s dense, dreamlike forests and is fundamental to life. For this reason, the ground is left permeable. Two obliquely anchored cantilevering megatrusses lift the building, suspending the floors. Rain can reach the earth, nourish the soil, preventing moisture buildup and encouraging natural flows from the mountains to the sea.
Elevating the floors is both an ecological and symbolic gesture. The ascent to the main living space becomes a pilgrimage toward the mountain. The central staircase aligns with the view, referencing Yama-ate, the traditional Japanese practice of orienting streets toward mountains.
The south-facing roof integrates solar panels, combining environmental performance with spatial experience. Its silhouette recalls a mountain peak, while its gently curved, layered form draws inspiration from traditional kawara roof tiles. Rainwater is guided from the highest point down to the ground, echoing the natural journey of rainwater from mountain peak to sea.
The south-facing roof integrates solar panels, combining environmental performance with spatial experience. Its silhouette recalls a mountain peak, while its gently curved, layered form draws inspiration from traditional
kawara roof tiles.
Interior design as a
reimagined mountain landscape
Local materials and traditional island crafts shape the architecture and interiors. Charred cedar wood gives the exterior a quiet, spirited presence, while cedar inside introduces warmth, scent, and a direct connection to the forest. Granite in the baths and sauna grounds the body in the earth. All materials are chosen to age deliberately: cedar, stone, and oxidising metal, so the building weathers alongside its environment.
Through Yakisugi, handmade objects, furniture crafted from fallen cedar trees, resin details, granite, and cascading baths,
the interior becomes a Yama no Mitate, a reimagined mountain landscape. Materials and craftsmanship evoke the forest's presence, allowing the mountain (yama) to be recalled through the Japanese principle of mitate: even when unseen, its presence is felt in every detail.
