Tato Architects uses old barrels to clad exterior of home and shop

Wood salvaged from old miso barrels has been used to clad a house built by Tato Architects in Japan for the owner of a nearby brewery specialising in soy sauces.

The home, which also includes a shop and warehouse space, is built around the steel structure of an existing 40-year-old building in the city of Hofu.

Into this structural shell Tato Architects inserted partition walls and glazing.

These new elements sit a 45 degree angle to the existing walls, creating an layering of public and private spaces.

"The idea of twisting the spaces 45 degrees is to create a more ambiguous feel between the new and old architecture," said the studio.

"It also creates diverse spaces under the eaves and courtyards, like wedged pieces of land between square fields."

The house in Hofu also includes living, office and workshop spaces,

Its plan is arranged so that the more public-facing office and shop face the street to the north, while the bedrooms occupy the home's more private southern half.

The building's original roof tops these new diagonal partition walls, creating two angular external courtyards.

One courtyard is next to the office, while one for the home creates a buffer zone between the living spaces and the city.

Set back from the road, the entrance to the shop overlooks a planted brick terrace.

Inside simple wooden shelving units and tables display the shop's products.

Glazed walls look out to a central courtyard and create views through to meeting areas, offices and a test kitchen.

This feeling of openness is enhanced by minimal finishes, such as concrete floors that flow from the interiors out onto the terraces, white ceilings, slim wooden window frames and slender steel columns.

Many of the glazed walls incorporate sliding elements, allowing the rooms of the building's work areas to be opened up to the outside.

They can also open each other, the join demarcated only by thin grooved in the floor.

"Looking from one room, the layers of glass doors and walls create depth and gradation, blurring the boundaries between spaces," said the studio.

The living areas, which occupy the eastern end of the home, are arranged around a double aspect living, dining and kitchen area.

This space looks onto a central courtyard to the east and a private terrace to the south.

In the house in Hofu's bedrooms, wooden panels line the entirety of the interior, creating spaces that feel more intimate and private than the shop next door.

To the west, storage area for the shop and a delivery area have been positioned with easy access to the road.

Led by architect Yo Shimada, Tato Architects is known for its playful and imaginative approach to residential architecture.

Recent projects include a house in Osaka with 16 different floor levels, a home in Kobe that merges interior and exterior spaces and a home in Sonobe that can be opened up to a garden with a huge sliding door.

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Project credits:

Architect: 
Tato Architects

Team: Yo Shimada, Keita Kurokoshi

Planting
: COCA-Z Tatsuya Kokaji
Construction: Fukumitsu Juken/Makoto Ikeda

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Drawing from personal experience, Rosi Tooth’s illustrations are sentimental, pink and extremely relevant

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Sweet Sneak Studio's photo series puts focus on microplastics in the food chain

Sushi wrapped in shopping bags and beer frothing with styrofoam bubbles are among the unappetising images in Sweet Sneak Studio's Microplastic Photo Series that explore the impacts of plastic pollution.

The Dutch food design studio teamed up with photographer Morten Bentzon for the series, which features eight different foods that tend to contain microplastics — the sub-five-millimetre pieces that remain after plastic waste degrades.

Sweet Sneak Studio undertook the project to raise awareness of the ways that commonly used plastics such as grocery bags and cling wrap re-enter the food chain. They also wanted to bust the myth that seafood is the only culprit.

"Because of their tiny size, [microplastics] can escape water treatment filtration systems and spread out in our oceans or in other water bodies," said the studio. "A range of sea life including zooplankton, octopus, clams, oysters, fish and seabirds can ingest microplastics, which may result in health impacts."

However, they continued, microplastics also enter the food chain when carnivorous animals eat prey animals contaminated with microplastics.

"Eventually, microplastics move all the way up to the top of the food chain and end up on our plates," they said.

"Even water is affected when bought in returnable plastic bottles as the bottles have the highest content of microplastic. Scientists have also found microplastics in beer, honey and sea salt."

Accordingly, each of their photos showcases one of these foods, always centred in the frame and portrayed against a brightly coloured, flat background.

The sushi roll photo replaces the usual seaweed wrap with blue and grey plastic grocery bags, while the image of a glass of beer has styrofoam beads in place of its frothy head.

Another photo shows oyster shells filled with scrunched cling wrap, while a tin with the lid peeled back reveals a coffee cup lid and other plastic scraps where you would expect to see sardines.

A pot of honey is strewn, snow globe style, with confetti-like plastic pieces, and a water bottle contains more plastic inside than out.

In the most minimal image, what appears to be a mound of salt is, on closer inspection, a pile of white plastic shavings.

Sweet Sneak Studio usually produces content and events that focus on the beauty of gastronomy, but co-founder Katrin Fiesler told Dezeen that the group were increasingly focusing on the "ugly truth" of the industry's issues around food waste, unsustainable packaging and unethical sourcing.

They created the series for Copenhagen Zoo, which exhibited the works on site in 2019.

Another designer to recently highlight the problem of microplastic pollution is Brodie Neill. In a project called The Capsule, he filled an hourglass with plastic pieces he collected from beaches in Tasmania where he grew up.

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