TACTILE HOUSE OSAKA

Hotta Carpet in Izumi City, Osaka, has been producing "Wilton carpets" woven from high-quality wool since its founding in 1962. We designed "TACTILE HOUSE OSAKA," Hotta Carpet’s newest building where visitors can interact with carpets and other artisanal interior materials. The first floor houses offices and a showroom, while the second floor consists of a showroom and accommodation. Various "artisanal interior materials" are incorporated in the second-floor space designed to accentuate the balance inherent in these materials. The owner wanted visitors to "experience the space as if they were at home," so rather than a design that sticks out, we aimed for a design that allows the visitors to imagine using each product in their daily lives. Given their functional properties, we used tiles for the bathroom, the floor and walls of the terrace, as well as the floor of the restroom.

We wanted tiles to surround the whole bathroom space. To create the sense of continuation, we created curved tiles for the inner corners. We used the unglazed tiles for the floor, followed by gradation and glazed tiles for the walls. The design process began with the question of how to effectively highlight the transparency and beauty of the glaze. We requested a combination of sand-speckled tile body with a highly transparent glaze, which resulted in beautiful tiles with clay textures subtly showing through. We appreciate the aesthetic quality of the fine cracks, or crazing, that appear with vitreous glazes, so we intentionally used tiles that show this feature rather than rejecting them.

I felt the possibility to create various spatial expressions when tile shapes are creatively designed beyond the usual flat format.