Seasonal Living Pod
Autumn 2024
Instructor: Jessie Reiser
Site: Inujima, Japan
Tea Houses and their rituals permeate all elements of Japanese culture. A Tea House is a place outside of the world that incorporates the world. The Tea Ceremony is all about composing tension, where different levels of formality meet and where elements are always reacting to the grid of the tatami mat but never corresponding to it. This isn’t a Tea House, it is something between a scout camping expedition and a zen practice, in living with the seasons, and with the landscape.The formality of the bar meets the informality of irregular pods, weaved with bamboo by inhabitants.
Each season brings a different configuration: expanded outdoor living spaces in summer, insulated cocoon-like interiors for winter, and transitional arrangements for spring and autumn.
This is a living pod to be lived in across all four seasons of a year. When inhabitants arrive, they bring toilet rolls, duty free purchases from the airport and a mindset of survivalism with them. They might stuff their clothes into the weaved walls to better insulate the pod. As Spring turns into Summer, inhabitants may move their bed to an opening to make the most of the breeze. It’s also rain season, so a tarp is thrown over, and rainwater collected. Experience is brought back into architecture - in Summer they need shade instead of AC, in winter a coat, a hearth and a shrunken space keep them warm. By bringing in ready-made items to this isolated experience, the project aims to question: what is the connection to the outside world in this pod?
The pods are nested into a bar superstructure. It is an intermediate between the pods and the environment beyond. It creates communal spaces and a landscape within the landscape.
Seasonal Living Pod
Autumn 2024
Instructor: Jessie Reiser
Site: Inujima, Japan
Tea Houses and their rituals permeate all elements of Japanese culture. A Tea House is a place outside of the world that incorporates the world. The Tea Ceremony is all about composing tension, where different levels of formality meet and where elements are always reacting to the grid of the tatami mat but never corresponding to it. This isn’t a Tea House, it is something between a scout camping expedition and a zen practice, in living with the seasons, and with the landscape.The formality of the bar meets the informality of irregular pods, weaved with bamboo by inhabitants.
Each season brings a different configuration: expanded outdoor living spaces in summer, insulated cocoon-like interiors for winter, and transitional arrangements for spring and autumn.
This is a living pod to be lived in across all four seasons of a year. When inhabitants arrive, they bring toilet rolls, duty free purchases from the airport and a mindset of survivalism with them. They might stuff their clothes into the weaved walls to better insulate the pod. As Spring turns into Summer, inhabitants may move their bed to an opening to make the most of the breeze. It’s also rain season, so a tarp is thrown over, and rainwater collected. Experience is brought back into architecture - in Summer they need shade instead of AC, in winter a coat, a hearth and a shrunken space keep them warm. By bringing in ready-made items to this isolated experience, the project aims to question: what is the connection to the outside world in this pod?
The pods are nested into a bar superstructure. It is an intermediate between the pods and the environment beyond. It creates communal spaces and a landscape within the landscape.
