Set on the edge of expansive rice fields in Hashima City, Gifu Prefecture, this 302 m² timber headquarters treats the surrounding agricultural plain as a primary design driver. A rising-to-east roof and low eaves calibrate horizon, light, and wind, while courtyards, engawa-like perimeters, and landscaped margins draw the outside into daily work routines. The building operates as a quiet environmental device, framing seasonal shifts in sun, rain, and color to register a renewed everyday landscape.
Hashima Office Technical Information
- Architects: PERMANENT & Atelier Nagara
- Location: 1051 Sugasakai, Hirakata, Fukuju-cho, Hashima City, Gifu Prefecture, Japan
- Gross Area: 302 m2 | 3,251 Sq. Ft.
- Completion Year: 2025
- Photographs: © Kenta Hasegawa
We set the building up as a device that makes wind, rain, and light legible, drawing out the latent value of the everyday landscape so that brief phenomena become part of daily experience.
– Atelier Nagara
Everyday Landscape as Design Driver
The project reads the rice-field plain not as scenery but as an active generator. Instead of mimicking rural typologies, the architecture positions itself to register the passage of the sun, the wind that slides down from the nearby mountains, and momentary weather events. Framing devices within the plan and section encourage occupants to notice small shifts in sky color, reflections across flooded paddies, and the sound of rain as it moves across the site.
Given the site’s isolation outside harvest months, the building adopts a strategy of calibrated attention. Views are composed to accept emptiness as a seasonal state while holding space for brief intensities when the fields fill with water or ripen. The siting and orientations turn episodic phenomena into recurring spatial experiences, creating a renewed everyday landscape that remains legible throughout the year.
Roof as Environmental Mediator
The roof rises decisively toward the east and drops to low eaves, compressing and releasing space to mediate between the horizontal expanse of the fields and human scale. This sectional strategy sets a consistent eye-level datum while opening the interior volumes to morning light and distant ridgelines. The low perimeter eaves temper the horizon, pulling exterior space inward and creating shaded edges that sharpen the contrast between ground and sky.
Subtle undulations along the roof edge produce a responsive silhouette that catches raking light, registers raindrops as visible streaks, and intensifies gradations in sky color. The profile is therefore less a formal flourish than an environmental instrument. The eave depth and height serve as tools for solar control and view framing, transforming the roof into a performative section that negotiates climate, drainage, and perception in a single assembly.
Mediated Thresholds and Spatial Typologies
Tall volumes gather beneath the rising eaves to house collective programs, including the entrance and meeting rooms. These spaces act as capacitors, drawing the exterior deep into the plan and encouraging shared use tied to daily rhythms. Circulation aligns with views toward fields and garden courts, using long, filtered sightlines to extend the sense of distance inside.
Between enclosed rooms and the landscape, the plan inserts intermediate zones: inner courtyards and engawa-like perimeters that operate as veranda-type thresholds. These temperate edges soften boundaries, allowing year-round adaptability by absorbing seasonal changes in wind, sun, and humidity. Generous margins are left intentionally underdetermined. Stone and planting move indoors to prolong the ground plane, supporting informal gatherings, quiet observation, or impromptu work without rigid programming.
Passive Comfort and Sensory Performance
Large south-facing openings paired with low eaves balance daylight, solar gain, and glare. Eave geometry invites high summer sun to be shed while admitting low winter sun to warm interior surfaces. Operable openings coordinate with garden courts to set up cross-ventilation paths, bringing cooled air across shaded water features and planting to stabilize interior temperatures and add acoustic softness.
The timber structure is finished with textured, light-diffusing surfaces. A robust exterior render and an interior acrylic emulsion with silica sand scatter glare and reveal the grain of daylight through the day. These finishes record weather and time at multiple scales, from fine dusting of water on eaves to soft burnish along hand-height surfaces, aligning material aging with the project’s ambition to foreground everyday environmental change.
About Atelier Nagara
Atelier Nagara is a Gifu City-based architecture studio founded by Takuya Iwata. Since its establishment, the studio has explored design strategies rooted in place, material sensitivity, and environmental phenomena. Their work emphasizes intermediate spaces, modest expressions, and architecture that harmonizes subtly with the natural rhythms and sensory attributes of its context.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Office Lead Architects: Kazuo Hara (PERMANENT), Masaki Takeuchi (PERMANENT), Takuya Iwata (Atelier Nagara)
- Client: A company engaged in civil engineering, construction, and real estate
