2016 UK Award Part 2
Borrowed Scenery: Miyato Salt Farm Onsen

This lyrical proposal explores the relationship of the government’s ambition and the locals’ wishes—the desire to create a concrete barrier to protect inland development from future tsunamis and the desire to preserve the natural landscape that the island offers. It is an exercise in tracing the regional vernacular of rural living and looking at the nativizing discourse of concrete in Japan.

This project does not seek to challenge, but rather synthesize the existing life on the Miyato Island by considering a marriage of the seawall into the terraced landscape. The architectural intervention is a salt terrace farm and an open salt hot spring. It brings the language of the seawater back inland (the government has ordered the islanders to move away from the beaches/coasts) and augments the aspect of living with the sea/saltwater by turning it into an industry that can attract new tenants and visitors of a younger generation.

The proposal wishes to be an impetus for future development concerning the empirical experience, as well as a call for challenging the notion of what it means to preserve Japan’s heritage.