Kawaba village has been continuing its efforts to develop the area for “rural utopia” taking advantage of Satoyama and beautiful rural scenery, adopting the idea of self-reliance and independence. This project has processed to visualize the future image of village based on that idea since 2016.
There are two areas and Village Hall, Small library & learning center, Hall, Energy center and disaster prevention warehouse are planned in the northside area. We did not construct a massive building integrated all functions, but we installed small group buildings like farming houses in the village.
There is a central plaza in front of village hall for various events and temporary refuge at a disaster, but we hope that this plaza will be always lively by visiting people from children to elderly people without any particular purpose.
We used positively the local wood for building structure, external wall and floor materials to visualize the village image of forest industry. Especially, in the waiting lobby, grand roof framing made of Japanese cedar is over the well-style hall and people can see the beautiful view of surroundings through the wooden frame curtain wall façade.
The structure and arrangement of bridge connecting each building is prepared for the extension to the southside area. And the underground pit is used as facility infrastructure such as electricity, LAN, water etc. from Energy center to each building.