A Case Study of Shofuso Japanese House and Garden

Yoko Kawai
Yale School of Architecture, Connecticut, U.S.A.
yoko.kawai@yale.edu

Background:

Traditional architectural practices often perceive spaces as detached, functional units, overlooking their potential to impact human well-being, particularly mental and emotional health. This object-centric view limits architecture’s ability to contribute meaningfully to human experiences.

The Japanese concept of Michiyuki, prevalent in art and cultural practices, offers a contrasting human-centric perspective. Defined by Kawai (2024), Michiyuki involves a temporal-spatial journey from a traveler’s perspective, facilitating emotional and spiritual experiences through architectural and environmental elements. Kawai identified five key steps in the macro-scale system of Michiyuki (Figure 1) that enrich the travel experience by incorporating multifaceted sensory interactions.

Figure 1: Macro scale system of Michiyuki (Yoko Kawai)

Objective:

The purpose of this study is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the micro-scale system of Michiyuki by investigating the repetitive patterns of arriving, experiencing, and departing within diverse environmental contexts at Shofuso Japanese House and Garden (Figure 2). This research aims to shift the conventional view to a human-centric perspective by integrating physiological and psychological dimensions of human interaction with spaces and establish a foundation for designing “journey” segments (micro-scale) connected to form a complete journey (macro-scale). Michiyuki serves as a model to guide and trace the physical and psychological spatial experience of travelers, allowing architects to design spaces that evoke specific emotional settings, such as mindfulness.

Figure 2: Shofuso House and Garden (Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia)

Methods:

This study uses the “space traveler’s notation system” (Kawai et al., 2018) to record and analyze journeys as both human movements and sensed spaces. The system applies DirectorNotation (Yannopoulos, 2013) and Labanotation (Guest 2005) to represent scenes visually and human movements temporally. It is expanded to include aspects of spatial sensing beyond vision, such as hearing and touch.

Hypothesis:

The study hypothesizes that, as in Kabuki, “arriving/departing” (AD) at Shofuso are elaborate to loosely contain each scene for the traveler “being in the place” (BP) and allow the journey to evolve more freely than rigid physical boundaries do. ADs and BPs are created by the interaction between the traveler and the space.

Results:

1. Both human movements and spatial changes are constant: Common language limits “arriving and departing” to human movements alone. Yet, at Shofuso, ADs involve changes in spatial conditions as well. Similarly, “being-in-the-space” often implies stillness, but body parts continuously move in BPs at Shofuso, even if it is just the movement of the head.

2. Time-length of ADs: Fifteen BPs and sixteen ADs are identified between the gate and the teahouse. Each BP is preceded and followed by an AD, creating a repetitive pattern. ADs link scenes in a specific order chosen by the traveler and guided by spatial elements. While the total time for BPs is 540 seconds versus 344 seconds for ADs, certain ADs can be as long as BPs. For instance, arriving at the gate path takes 32 seconds and being there takes 37 seconds. Major spatial transitions see even longer ADs—arriving at the anteroom took 81 seconds, compared to 28 seconds for being in the anteroom.

3. Complexity of movements and spatial changes in AD: The research found that ADs often involve coordinated movements of different body parts (head, arm, body, leg) interacting with various spatial elements (hedge, shoji, light). For example, at the gate, the traveler turns their head, raises an arm to touch the door, steps over the threshold, descends two stone steps, and then turns right by a tall hedge (Figure 3). This coordination and comprehension lead to slowness and deepen boundary recognition. From a design perspective, this highlights the importance of dense design elements for the traveler to feel they have arrived or departed.

Figure 3: A Complex AD at the gate represented by Space Traveler’s Notation System (Yoko Kawai)

4. Significance of repeated sitting down in ADs: During the less than 20-minute journey at Shofuso, sitting down or squatting occurs seven times. This action, common in cultures where floor sitting is normal, may be uniquely repetitive in Michiyuki. All but one of these actions occur during ADs, either at their start to prepare for departure or their end to mark arrival. Sitting down requires physical effort, indicating a prolonged pause, such as the 90-second BP in the first room, where the traveler looks around at the garden, the artwork on the door, and the ceiling through the Kamoi wooden grill. The Fusuma door with a wooden threshold cues this sitting down, allowing the traveler to engage with the room’s elements, thus emphasizing the significant change in eye-level (Figure 4).

Figure 4: A sitting down during AD before ante room represented by Space Traveler’s Notation System (Yoko Kawai)

5. Slow walk to look down AND around: Slow walks occur in both ADs and BPs. This research highlights that slowing down due to floor/ground conditions often happens simultaneously with turning the head to look around. For example, in the anteroom, the traveler walks slowly to avoid the edges of tatami while also observing the Shoji doors and the light in the room’s comparative darkness. In the garden, as the traveler steps up large stones before a fork, they also look to either side to see the water flow beneath the stones. It shows that ground/floor design not only moderates the pace but also directs attention to specific spatial arrangements the designer wants to highlight.

6. Subtle vertical movements and cues: Head down and stepping up/down/over serve different roles and respond to space differently. Before or after major transitions, like stepping over a threshold while turning the head slightly down before sitting on the floor, spatial elements (threshold or Kamoi) cue the traveler to prepare for arrival or release from transition. Repeated stepping up/down, both in ADs and BPs, plays a similar role and interaction with the space as slow walks, as described earlier.

7. Body rotations and path design to look around: In open spaces like the main room or garden, changes in views are achieved through the traveler’s movements, especially body rotations guided by forked or curved paths. These rotations occur both in ADs, such as anticipating a garden walk after the moon-viewing veranda, and in BPs, like turning to see the garden at the top of a curved path. Similar to slow walks, body rotations utilize ground/floor design and surrounding spatial design to enhance the traveler’s ability to look around.

8. ADs Can Be BPs: As discussed above, slow walks and body rotations occur in both ADs and BPs, both inducing slow observation to engage with the space, which typically signifies BPs. This suggests that the differentiation between ADs and BPs becomes blurred in such instances. Because body rotations without visual barriers occur more frequently in a garden, this blurring between AD and BP, or AD becoming more like BP, can be recognized more often in garden settings than in architectural ones.

9. Constant tactile spatial experiences: The number of tactile spatial experiences (beyond hand touch) is second only to visual experiences throughout the journey. Constant body movement leads to frequent encounters with new materials. The traveler’s hands touch the wooden door, shoes, metal pull of the Fusuma door, tatami, and pants. Shins touch tatami, and the bottoms of feet encounter flat and rough stone surfaces, wood floors, and tatami. These tactile experiences occur in both ADs and BPs, showing that at Shofuso, spatial design guiding body movements is well-aligned with material design.

Revised Hypothesis:

The micro-scale processes during ADs and BPs at Shofuso involve constant interaction between the body and space. Significant ADs feature simultaneous complex human movements and spatial cues, while sitting down ensures containment and highlights spatial presentation. Slow walks and body rotations, both cued by ground design and timed with surrounding landscapes, occur in both ADs and BPs. Tactile experiences play a significant role, with the body constantly encountering new materials. This highlights a blurred differentiation between ADs and BPs in both importance and character; ADs can take as much time as BPs and can exhibit similar characteristics, particularly in open spaces where ADs can resemble BPs through shared movements.

The original hypothesis that ADs and BPs at Shofuso are created by the constant interaction between the traveler and the space is confirmed. This study provides tools for designing both strong and subtle ADs and BPs. The revised hypothesis states that contained BPs via elaborate ADs occur in Michiyuki when ADs are complex or include significant vertical movements, like sitting down. However, ADs can be equally or more important than BPs in time-length and share characteristics with BPs, making ADs sometimes behave like BPs.

Further Discussion and Future Studies: 

The elevated status of ADs and their similarity with BPs through slow walking and turning align with historical and philosophical understandings of Michiyuki. As art historian Shuji Takashina stated, “In journeys in Western cultures, destinations are most important. However, in Japanese journeys, the journeying itself is most important” (Takashina 1991). For a traveler, this elevated status of ADs means their experience and memory of arriving and departing are as profound as the places visited, becoming semi-places. In the macro-scale 5-steps of Michiyuki, this translates into an increased number of “places,” densifying the experience.

Constant slow movements in both ADs and BPs suggest complete stillness may not be necessary to fully embody the space. This challenges the common design approach of providing firm barriers and seats for static observation. Instead, the practice of walking meditation, Shinrin-Yoku (forest bathing) (Furuyashiki et al., 2019; Wen et al., 2019), and research on walking with environmental restrictions (Wooler et al., 2022) demonstrate that slow, continuous walking can induce mindfulness and enhance well-being.

The research implies that both elaborate ADs and lengthy, BP-like ADs make time and spatial boundaries in Michiyuki impressionable and memorable. Repetitive experiences and thresholds in Michiyuki can influence time perception and memory recall (Ongchoco et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2023). This insight can help architects predict the mental state of travelers after navigating a Michiyuki designed with the tools offered by this research.

Future studies will address the limitation of this research scope by including perceived light, hearing, and sensed air. Further review of related literature will hypothesize potential changes in the state of mind of travelers navigating the Michiyuki micro-scale system. Empirical case studies will measure the sensory and mental activities of these travelers to test the proposed hypotheses.

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