Project Name: NOT A HOTEL Setouchi Resort

Location: Sagishima Island, Seto Inland Sea, Japan

Architecture Practice: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

Total Floor Area: 2,350 m²

Completion: 2026

Photography: Kenta Hasegawa

Design Features: Bjarke Ingels Group has completed its first built works in Japan, unveiling three rammed earth villas on the remote island of Sagishima in the Seto Inland Sea for luxury hospitality brand NOT A HOTEL. The project, known as NOT A HOTEL Setouchi, marks a significant milestone for the Copenhagen-based practice, blending Scandinavian design sensibility with deep reverence for Japanese architectural tradition.

Occupying a 30,000-square-metre site on the island's southwestern cape, the three four-bedroom villas are named 180, 270, and 360, each reflecting the panoramic reach of their sea and mountain views. Rather than imposing on the terrain, the structures unfurl like ribbons across the hillside, their long curving facades shaped directly by the topography underfoot. At the summit, the ring-shaped 360 villa wraps around a private courtyard, offering unobstructed vistas in every direction. Further down the slope, 270 commands a sweeping panorama alongside a sauna, firepit, and pool arranged like floating islands. At the water's edge, 180 echoes the curvature of the coastline itself.

What makes this project particularly compelling is its material honesty. The load-bearing walls are constructed from soil excavated directly on site using the ancient rammed earth technique, exposing geological strata in their raw striated surfaces. Glass facades reinterpret traditional shoji screens, dissolving the boundary between interior and landscape, while black slate floors reference the geometry of tatami mats. Rooftops clad in low-reflective solar tiles offer a contemporary reinterpretation of the classic Japanese roof profile. Sustainability is woven throughout: rainwater is harvested on site, passive cooling strategies reduce energy demand, and native vegetation including olive and lemon trees has been reintroduced to restore the island's natural ecology. The result is an architecture that feels simultaneously ancient and entirely of this moment.

Design Team: Founded in 2005 by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has grown from a Copenhagen-based studio into a globally active practice of over 800 designers, with offices spanning Copenhagen, New York, London, Barcelona, Shanghai, and Los Angeles. Under the creative direction of Bjarke Ingels as Founder and Creative Director, and the operational leadership of Sheela Maini Søgaard as CEO and Partner, the firm operates across architecture, landscape, urbanism, engineering, and product design, embodying what it terms the BIG LEAP: an integrated multidisciplinary platform.

BIG's design philosophy is grounded in the concept of pragmatic utopianism, pursuing built outcomes that are simultaneously socially responsive, environmentally responsible, and formally ambitious. Rather than treating sustainability and livability as competing priorities, the practice consistently synthesises them into coherent architectural propositions. Landmark projects including the CopenHill waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen, the Google Bay View campus in Silicon Valley, VIA 57 West in Manhattan, and the recently completed NOT A HOTEL Setouchi in Japan demonstrate the firm's capacity to operate fluidly across typologies, scales, and cultural contexts.

Guided by the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for architectural performance, BIG advances a practice model in which collective intelligence and interdisciplinary collaboration serve as the primary instruments of design innovation. NOT A HOTEL Setouchi was led by Partners in Charge Bjarke Ingels and Leon Rost, with Yu Inamoto as Project Manager, Ryohei Koike as Design Lead, and Mamoru Hoshi as Project Architect. Construction was carried out by Maeda Corporation, with structural and MEP consultancy provided by Arup Japan.