Inflatable Japanese Teahouse

Japanese Tea Houses are among the most beautiful and serene structures on the planet, and are usually minimalist in design and modest in size. This inflatable Japanese teahouse, designed by Kengo Kuma, was created for an exhibit at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt. At a first glance you don’t even know that is a house I thought that is a inflatable balloon, and maybe discotheque, but not a japanese tea house. Normally this type of structure does not make it past the drawing board, but the Japanese have more guts then we do when it comes to architecture. I don’t know why they wanted to build this house because is just a waste or material, time and money.

The teahouse does not rise up from the ground as a fixed wooden construction, but unfolds as an airborne form. When a ventilation system is activated, the teahouse swells into shape like a white high-tech textile blossom. In its interior, comprising a surface of approximately twenty square metres, are nine tatami mats, an electric stove for the water kettle, a tokonoma niche and a preparation room. Integrated LED technology allows the use of the teahouse at night; the interior can be heated by way of the membrane. Finnaly ..one questions for my readers ..when you saw this house what did you think it was ?


SOURCE: Dvice & Slipperybrick http://freshome.com/2008/02/22/inflatable-japanese-teahouse/