MOuGENAN | 思源庵

Kyoto 2024.

Developer: Suikoushya Ltd. Kyoto

Construction: Suikoushya + Nashinokisya.

Mougenan is an exact replica of the Tai-an — the two-mat sukiya tea house in Kyoto attributed to Sen no Rikyū, and one of the most studied small structures in Japanese architectural history. Every measurement was taken from the original. Every detail followed.

The project was undertaken as an act of research: to understand sukiya construction not through drawings or description but through the making itself. Built under the direction of Suikoushya, the work required a quality of attention that modern construction rarely demands — joints resolved at the scale of millimetres, surfaces finished by hand, proportions that only reveal their logic once you are inside them.

To build small is not to build simply.