Location: Isumi, Japan

Design Team: Furuya Design Architect Office

Area: 794.99 m²

Year: 2024

Photography: Yasuhiro Nakayama

Design Features: HOTEL THE MADO stands on a rise above Taitō Beach in Isumi, Chiba, facing the curve of the Kujūkuri coast. Furuya Design Architect Office treats the shoreline as more than a view from the guest rooms. Its sweep informs the plan itself, allowing the building to follow the terrain while establishing distinct relationships with the sea, garden and rocky coastal landscape.

Cape Taitō has long been shaped by erosion, which helped form the sands of this coast. Against this changing setting, the building relies on a measured structural language. Slender 350 mm square reinforced-concrete columns meet the demands of a cliffside site, structural loading and salt exposure. Two horizontal levels extend along the coast; broad glazing opens the interior to the landscape while concrete gives that openness a firm frame.

The sea lies to the north, the garden to the south. An outdoor pool cuts into the building, and a route crossing from one side to the other gradually brings the horizon into view. Colonnades, terraces and dining spaces extend the experience beyond the rooms. As visitors move, windows, columns and eaves repeatedly redraw the edge of the landscape. The coast becomes an organising presence throughout the hotel rather than a single framed picture.

Guest rooms and shared rooms meet the water at different scales. Long windows broaden the view, while deep eaves and terraces create places to pause between inside and out. Quiet interior finishes leave light and water in the foreground. “Mado” means “window” in Japanese; here it names not just an opening in the wall, but a new way to attend to the Taitō coast.

Design Team: Furuya Design Architect Office was founded in 2009 by architect Shunichi Furuya and is based in Tokyo. Furuya studied architecture at Meiji University and Waseda University before working with IDÉE and Urban Design System. The practice moves between architecture, interiors, landscape and planting, using design to strengthen the continuity between buildings and their settings.

Plants, site conditions and everyday use are recurring concerns in the studio’s work, which includes Jindaiji Garden, eM / PARK BLDG. and the ESHIKOTO PROJECT. Furuya has received distinctions including the Japan Space Design Award and founded Midori no Kukan Kousakusho in 2022. The HOTEL THE MADO team comprised Shunichi Furuya, Masato Aki and Kohmi Nakagawa.