Project: Cultural Center  

Location: Hamamatsu

Geographic coordinate:  34.7103° N, 137.7274° E

Year: 2016-2018

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Studio:  Himawari Sekkei

Role: Architect Designer

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ABSTRACT

 

Ars Nova is a welfare facility that welcomes people with disabilities exactly as they are, offering a new model of urban living rooted in inclusion and mutual curiosity. Conceived as a guerrilla-style intervention in the city center, its vision is simple yet radical: a space where people with and without disabilities meet on equal ground, free from preconceptions.

The architecture responds not by imposing function, but by enabling freedom. A threshold “trap” gently invites visitors in—past a relaxed café, toward open areas where one can lie down, dance, shout, or simply be. From the second-floor terrace, music pours into the street like a cannon shot, awakening the curiosity of passersby.

This is a three-story shared house exploring new forms of independence for people with severe intellectual disabilities—supported not by family alone, but by community. The interior, co-created by staff, designers, and local residents, is built from recycled materials: Tenryū forest wood, piano-factory sponge, fishing-port rope. These elements form not a fixed composition, but a layered, evolving space—designed to change with those who inhabit it.

Ars Nova asks what architecture can do when it listens, adapts, and invites transformation.