Tsuboya is an open timber pavilion designed for the British garden — a structure that draws from several threads of Japanese building tradition without belonging entirely to any of them. Its name recalls the tsuboniwa, the small interior courtyard of Japanese domestic architecture — though here the logic is reversed. The roof closes above while the sides open outward, and it is the garden that enters the structure, not the sky.

The structure follows the form of an azumaya, the traditional garden arbour, but incorporates elements of the tea house — among them a sunken hearth, the ro, set into the timber floor. It is designed in the spirit of the sencha tradition, where the practice of tea moves outdoors and the boundary between shelter and landscape dissolves. Enclosure is suggested rather than built.

Tsuboya was designed by Nashinokisya and built together with Plane and Able, a British timber framing practice. It is presented at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show from 21 to 23 May 2026. Visitors are welcome at the stand.