Bright Red Bridge Tea House
The bold Bridge Tea House by Fernando Romero looks as unlike a traditional Japanese tea house as it possibly could. A real, functional tea house, the twisting truss spans a pond at the JinHua Architecture Park in China. “Our concept is based on two fundamental elements in the typological conformation of Chinese gardens: the bridge and the teahouse. Since our site was next to a water pond, we wanted to unify both those typologies into one single structure.”
Flat-Pack Minimalist White Tea House
Artist Kengo Kuma created the ‘Oribe Tea House’ as an homage to the 16th century tea ceremony master Furuta Oribe. Stark white and ribbed, the tea house feels minimalist and skeletal. It’s mobile and temporary, made of corrugated plastic boards fixed together with bands. The whole thing packs flat for easy transport.
Floating Open Bamboo Courtyard Tea House
This open bamboo framework is a tea house that actually floats on a lake i the Shiqiao Garden northwest of Shanghai. Bamboo Courtyard Teahouse by Architect Sun Wei is a contemporary take on both tea house architecture and bamboo, both traditional aspects of Chinese culture.
Flying Mud Boat by Terunobu Fujimori
Another absurdist tea house design by Terunobu Fujimori looks like something out of a Hayao Miyazaki film, a ‘Flying Mud Boat’ suspended between two poles. Inspired by organic shapes and materials, it looks like it could be some kind of pod that fell out of a massive tree. While it’s a bit silly and humorous looking, Fujimori intends to make a serious statement with it: suspending structures with cables could be a realistic solution for earthquake- and flood-proof architecture in Japan.
