(via Architizer)
Kuma Kengo (Kengo Kuma in Anglo name order) is a Japanese famous architect, who designed this unique Starbucks shop in Dazaifu, Fukuoka. His obsessiveness of Paticlization has long been obvious from his works such as Hiroshige Museum, Asahi Broadcasting HQ, or River/Filter. Personally his best work is Hiroshige museum by far, but in each work he aimed at different goals so it's difficult to tell from object itself without context.I always think what separate designers and Architects... it's difficult to put into words but Kuma's work tells that difference the best for me. Architects like him, They always care the context of the city. This shop is faced to the approach to the iconic shrine Dazaifu-Tenmangu, so he tried to add traditional structure here, but at the same time, try to diffuse it into the typical cheap Japanese cityscape. The frame of this shop is identical to the archetype of Japanese low-budget city housings, among which this tiny architecture fits in.
Two back gardens and a cherry tree are put in this narrow deep land plot expecting to be a community space for the local people and who come to visit the shrine.
So far this is the best-designed Starbucks in Japan.
Slideshow - click to start
