Back to buildersNew builds and renovations from small to large rooms, with craftsmanship that brings out the wood; also shown abroad, including in Paris.
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Source: kyotoyamashou.com
Established in 2006 in Narutaki, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto, this builder takes on both sukiya and general construction, aiming to make the most of every piece of timber.
For sukiya work it builds and renovates tea rooms from small koma rooms to large hiroma, helping clients choose fine timber to suit their taste. It has built tea rooms in Hiroshima, Ashiya, Nara, Shimogamo, Okazaki and Tsu, and accepts projects far from Kyoto.
Its general work covers new houses, gates and renovations, with a speciality in solid domestic timber and exposed log beams. It exhibited tokonoma alcove units at Paris Design Week in 2022 and at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) in Paris in 2023.
A two-and-three-quarter-mat room with a middle board and the alcove on the lower side. The alcove post is hexagonally adzed oak, the alcove lintel a Japanese boat's oar and the middle board old pine; the sloping ceiling is lined with cedar bark. The noble's entrance opens fully to the garden, and the exterior is clad in Dutch-made Accoya wood fixed without visible nails.
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A two-and-three-quarter-mat room with the alcove on the lower side, built afterwards entirely inside an existing Western-style room. The crawl-in entrance has two sliding panels, and the alcove post is a squared length of old chestnut.
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A two-mat room with a middle board and the alcove on the upper side, set later into a nook of a concrete building. The alcove post is old temple timber and the lintel ancient buried cedar, both supplied by the client; the ceiling is nezuko shingle board and the preparation room follows Omotesenke style.
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A three-mat small room and an eight-mat large room. The small room uses a kobushi alcove post and a straight bark-on red pine middle post, with a free-standing post under the deep eave; the large room's alcove rail is a split polished Kitayama cedar log.
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A roomy four-mat small room combining three ceilings in formal, semi-formal and informal styles, with a kobushi middle post and recycled-paper wainscot. There is also an Urasenke-style preparation room and an eight-mat room with a polished Kitayama cedar alcove post.
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A two-and-three-quarter-mat room added beneath the terrace of a concrete building, with a garden path that seems to float on water. The alcove post is ancient buried cedar and the middle post a gracefully curved bark-on red pine.
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A four-mat small room and a large room whose front six mats have a large hearth and back eight mats a standard cut hearth. The small room's alcove rail is ironwood and the large room's is black lacquer; there is a five-seat waiting bench and an Urasenke-style preparation room 4 shaku wide.
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A tea room in Tsu, presented on the official site through photographs.
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A six-mat guest room was given a hearth to become a tea room. The courtyard garden was remade as a tea garden with a five-seat waiting bench, and part of the veranda was removed to widen the space before the crawl-in entrance. Shoji and glass doors slide away to open the room to the garden, and the next room holds a portable preparation stand and shelving.
View on official site ↗Photos: Yamasho official website
The firm explains that sukiya architecture began in the Azuchi-Momoyama period, dropping the strict forms of shoin style for freer designs that show off the materials themselves. Yamasho handles tea rooms from new builds to renovations, choosing materials to suit.
A ready-made unit that brings a proper alcove into any room, with jurakudo clay walls, a polished Kitayama cedar post and an adze-finished Japanese pagoda tree rail. It is aimed at apartments without alcoves, hotels, inns, restaurants and enthusiasts overseas.
The domestic price is ¥1,200,000 (excluding tax and delivery); standard size is W1,350 × H2,200 × D840 mm, with custom sizes and material changes available.
The site shows videos of alcove posts and rails being shaped in the workshop: tenons cut with many kinds of chisel and lines marked with a scribing tool, worked entirely by hand in the traditional way.
Photos: Yamasho official website
| Company | Yamasho |
|---|---|
| Representative | Masaki Tachinaka |
| Address | 3-7 Narutaki Nishisagaen-cho, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto |
| Established | May 2006 |
| Business | New tea rooms (small to large) and renovation; new building and renovation of houses, gates, etc. |
| Licenses | General construction, Kyoto Governor license (General-3) No. 36475 |
| Specialty | Tea rooms built from the choice of fine timber up; tokonoma units exhibited in Paris |
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