{"id":255002,"date":"2025-05-02T13:51:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T17:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/?post_type=id_project&p=255002"},"modified":"2025-05-02T13:51:36","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T17:51:36","slug":"wakuni-shoten-cafe-tokyo-by-kengo-kuma","status":"publish","type":"id_project","link":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/projects\/wakuni-shoten-cafe-tokyo-by-kengo-kuma\/","title":{"rendered":"Kengo Kuma Designs A Tokyo Caf\u00e9 With A Dynamic Facade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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May 2, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n

Words: <\/span>Danielle Demetriou<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photography: <\/span>Jimmy Cohrssen<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Kengo Kuma Designs A Tokyo Caf\u00e9 With A Dynamic Facade<\/h1>\n\n\n

The scales of a living fish are not a typical starting point for a design concept. Yet this is an idea that underpins Wakuni Shoten, a caf\u00e9 in suburban Tokyo by Japanese architect and Interior Design <\/em>Hall of Fame member Kengo Kuma<\/a> that boasts a rhythmic three-dimensional facade of more than 700 verdigris copper plates repurposed from a shrine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tidy 600-square-foot spot occupies a former tobacco store in a 55-year-old wooden building on a quiet shopping street in Higashimurayama. The project was helmed by local sheet-metal artisans aiming to revitalize the neighborhood and create an innovative community base. Inside, coffee and Shiba dog-shaped cookies are served amid such crafted brass details as angular counters and shapely pendant fixtures, the warm metal juxtaposing the concrete flooring and black plaster walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s the facade that really defines the spirit of Wakuni Shoten. <\/em>The geometric pentagonal plates\u2014layered, sculptural, origamilike\u2014were formed out of recycled materials from the roof of Hayatani Shrine in Hiroshima, using a technique by metal artisan Tomokazu Uchino. Their patinated surfaces, in an organic spectrum of greens and blues, are in a constant state of transformation, evolving with the shift of time, weather, and light. \u201cOur aim was to breathe new life into the abandoned building,\u201d Kuma<\/a> says, \u201cinto architecture that had been long dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kengo Kuma Captures Wakuni Shoten\u2019s Spirit Through Sustainable Craft<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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