NOT A HOTEL / yakushima, japan / competition in 2026 / best 30


This project explores architecture as a gradual immersion into the primal landscape of Yakushima, rather than a boundary between nature and the human. Four slender spaces extend independently from a central core, responding to the forest, topography, light, rocks, and wind from multiple directions. As the spaces unfold outward, the body gradually shifts from standing to sitting and lying, allowing an increasingly intimate encounter with nature. A sequence from functional interior to engawa-like buffer, terrace, and natural ground carefully dissolves the boundary between architecture and landscape.