Ine Town received a donation to renovate and expand a private house located in a traditional building preservation district and transform it into a library for the town’s residents. 2021, the team of Masahiro Kinoshita Laboratory of Kyoto Institute of Technology and Kino Architects was selected first in the design proposal process.
Ine Town is famous for the “Ine-no-Funaya,” boathouses that are still used as a part of daily life in Ine Town, where a unique lifestyle and culture was nurtured along with the calm waves of Ine Bay. The houses in Ine-cho consist of a boathouse, main house, and storehouse. The building to be renovated was the main house, located between the sea and the mountains. Behind the main house is a group of warehouses lined up at the foot of the mountain. We thought that the sustainability of the town would depend not only on the boathouse as a tourist resource, but also on renewing and sustaining the village structure created by the main house and warehouses, and the image of life that exists with them. We focused on the warehouses and added two “book warehouses” next to the main house. We wanted to preserve in the memory of children’s original experience of the elation they felt the moment they entered the storehouses filled with their precious belongings through the experience of being surrounded by books in the storehouses. The existing storehouse behind the book storehouse is connected to the existing storehouse, bringing the unique scenery of Ine into the site, and revitalizing a disused road for daily life as a lively village street for children to pass through.
We hope that this architecture will connect the people of the town today, and that it will continue to be used and renewed in the future with new interpretations.