Best 30 Shortlist, Not A Hotel Design Competition 2024

Shinrin-yoku, known as ‘forest bathing’, is a therapeutic practice where one seeks relaxation, peaceful mind and sensory connection surrounded with the natural atmosphere. Dwelled within the untouched forest of Kitakaruizawa, the Not A Hotel vacation home with its context resonates perfectly with the philosophy of Shinrin-yoku- an escapism or a refuge to its primitive nature. It is a vessel offering a complete immersion and spiritual experience, analogous to a shower in the forest.

Sitting upon the rugged and uneven landscape, the vacation home is raised with stilts in steel structures and touches lightly on the land with minimal ecological footprint. The afloat floor slab cascades in slight level changes to create various gaps from its natural topography, while enabling the building programs to be configured in 3 platforms: bathing deck, living deck, and private deck. The building envelope is composed of in-and-out gestures cloaked with linear elements in different degree of transparency and depth, camouflaging itself seamlessly within the forest canopy.  Behind the façade screening for the sense of privacy, openings are provided to frame views from different angles to the surrounding environment. From its overall exterior outlook, everything is sheltered beneath a huge hipped roof, which appears to be almost a disappearing hut in its serene natural setting.

The notion of framing is also embraced for its crafted interior experiences, suggesting profound yet intimate dialogue with its surrounding landscape and capturing the sensitivity embedded to the little changes or moments in the atmosphere.  From the architectural layout, the vacation home design is framed with threshold of spatial archetypes in transitions shifting from outside to inside. In such transitions, the flowing spaces are composed with a changing degree of openness towards nature. The duality between openness and enclosure is extended further between the light and shade curated within the spaces with the integration of features such as roof overhang, recessed balconies, panoramic windows, façade screening, and skylight. Without compromising the privacy as a vacation home, the design maximizes the projection of remedial qualities of nature into its interior atmosphere.

Calmly resting within its natural backdrop, the Not A Hotel vacation home at Kitakaruizawa is a destination where the spirituality of Shinrin-yoku condensed. Occupants are enriched to become more than an observer, but a participant to immerse, experience, and cherish- as one with the nature’s presence.