Private Garden Retreat

This zen tea house is one of the commissioned projects of SuttonBeresCuller, and its part of a mid-century modern home design in in Seatlle, WA. I don’t think anyone would say no to spending hours in this cute and charming house, enjoying countless tea cups.

This house features a pair of Shoji-inspired sliding doors which reveal a playful interior of cedar planks in different colors. On top of the V-shaped roof there are growing plants. Although small and toy-like, this tea house evokes a calm and peaceful atmosphere in the spirit of zen – almost like it floats above the ground in a dreamlike fashion.

 

The Paper Tea House

This piece of contemporary architecture/design/art was exhibited and auctioned off by Phillips de Pury & Company and finally sold for £31,700. The Paper Tea House was created by Japanese architect Shingeru Ban and it uses paper and cardboard as building materials. The choice of materials – recyclable and low-tech counter the current trends of sophisticated consumer technology.

The structure is over 5 meters long and consists of a room for the Tea Ceremony and a waiting area with a bench. The interior is furnished with a table and four stools all made of cardboard. The walls and the floor of the house is made of hollow cardboard tubes. It is a good example of modern simplicity. This design has certainly fueled today’s growing trend of green solutions.

 

The Tea House That’s Too High

An adrenaline kick along with your cup of tea? In that case Takasugi-an is the right place to be… or it would be if it was a commercial tea house. The somewhat scary and unstable looking Takasugi-an is an architectural project by Terunobu Fujimori – a tea house built atop two chestnut trees in Chino, Japan. Mr. Fujimori decided to build Takasugi-an for himself on a patch of land owned by his family in order to challenge the traditional idea of a tea house. In reality it resembles a tree house, which is supported by two trees that have been cut and transported from a site nearby and the only way to access it is to climb freestanding ladders. Like in any traditional Japanese household you have to remove your shoes on a midway platform. This is a very innovative and interesting project from an architectural view, despite it’s simple and minimalistic nature, however it’s not very safe considering that the trees have to roots and the whole structure seems rather unstable. Perhaps it’s worthwhile regardless, since the house overlooks Fujimori’s home city. The name – Takasugi-an simply means “the tea house that was built too high”.

Photos taken by Edward Sumner