TORAFU ARCHITECTS

TORAFU designed morinokousha, located in “Natu no mori (Natural Science Garden)”, run by Natural Science/Natural Island, which handles skin care products. To establish the new morinokousha, we renovated a closed junior high school, built on a vast site with a cosmetics factory using spring water from Lake Kuttara in the southwestern part of Hokkaido and a garden open to residents.
In this project, a space that would stimulate intellectual curiosity was sought. We renovated the school into a complex facility where children and adults alike can experience the excitement of discovering the wonders of nature through the scales of science while preserving the vestiges of the school of that time.

A grove of trees planted in front of the two-story building, which retained an atmosphere of the former school building, and a large Noren welcomes visitors. On the first floor, there is the “Scent Lab,” where visitors experience a scent-themed exhibition; the “Distillation Laboratory,” which holds workshops and has a distiller that extracts essential oils, etc., and a "distilled cafe & shop,” which serves original drinks using spring water and distillation equipment. The second floor consists of a library with select books on the theme of nature and science, a children's library "EHON (picture book) room" that seems to be integrated with playground equipment, and a gallery for special exhibitions.
On the ceiling of the second-floor library, we installed a large circular lighting reflector reminiscent of the sun by extending the original decorative ceiling, and bookshelves are lined up concentrically from the center. It creates a maze-like reading space with hidden places to take a load off and creates a chance of an encounter with different books. In the atrium adjacent to the ceiling of the sun, water balloons, the lighting reminiscent of water droplets, flicker as if breathing. They are made with a reused glass of fluorescent lamps from the closed school and resemble water droplets. The sofa on the first floor is designed to resemble Lake Kuttara to catch water droplets. Visitors can look up through the atrium when they lie down on it. Since the company sought the water of Lake Kuttara for its production base to create natural products, we wanted to embody that story in the space. To assign each primary function, we kept the original size of the classrooms or sometimes expanded their size, while making relaxing areas and exhibition spaces on aisles and in common areas. In the area that used to be the entrance to the school, there is a display with elements of morinokousha and equipment from the closed school. At the space that used to be the entrance, we prepared various devices, such as a space that introduces the company with a chronological table of the company and a drying rack of herbs lightened up. Visitors can enjoy the exhibition and discover devices here and there while strolling through this facility. Incorporating the architectural features of the original school building, such as the patterned flooring, brick walls, and the circular ceiling, creates a temporal connection with the past.

Like science mediates between people and nature, we thought that this facility would be a place to spark interest in the vast surrounding nature.