Harvesting bamboo from an overgrown plantation with farmer Masaji Ishida

The bamboo harvesting team

Professor Haruhito Sano and farmer Masaji Ishida attach the cargo for transport to the Villa

Bamboo farmer Masaji Ishida offers a bunch of Yuzu to the harvesting team

Kurato Fujimoto spinning the support network for the installation

Kurato Fujimoto spinning the support network for the installation

Kurato Fujimoto spinning the support network for the installation

Kibo Hagino and Kurato Fujimoto making a bamboo peristyle in front of the Villa Kujoyama

A participative bamboo dome structure made inside the Villa

Upside-down suspended bamboo in the Villa Kujoyama's courtyard to mark the signature of the 2015 Paris accords

Bamboo Cluster Installation

Villa Kujoyama, Kyoto

Kyoto, Japan

December 2015

As part of a two-month residency at the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto investigating Japanese approaches to wood, bamboo and earth, practice director Andrew Todd co-conceived and built with Japanese architect Kiichiro Hagino a temporary installation on the roof of the Villa. They harvested dozens of bamboo poles outside of Kyoto in (at the bamboo farm of Masaji Ishida) and assembled them into a structure supported with ropes in an exploration of the character of cluster and periphery. Master gardener Kurato Fujimoto assisted valiantly in the realisation. Designed primarily for nocturnal appreciation, the structure remained in situ at the Villa for five months.

Team

Kurato Fujimoto

Kiichiro Hagino

Masaji Ishida

Agnès Lahaye and residents of the Villa Kujoyama

Haruhito Sano and the students of Kyoto College of Architecture

Andrew Todd

photography by Studio Andrew Todd, Pierre-Jean Giloux and Armelle Dousset