The Winds of Change

Shokusai Ishikura, a restaurant by Super Potato, brings international sophistication to a countrified Japanese inn

by Benjamin Budde -- Interior Design, 6/1/2008

Takashi Sugimoto is among the busiest interior designers in the hospitality business. If you haven't yet been in a hotel he's designed, chances are you'll be in one soon. The founding principal of Super Potato, Sugimoto rattles off a laundry list of locations where he's working at the moment: Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, the United Arab Emirates. . . . Many of the projects are for Hyatt Corporation brands, but there's no shortage of other major hoteliers, either.

If you're the owner of a quaint small inn, how do you snare such an in-demand designer for your renovation? It wouldn't hurt if you'd known him since he was at university, which was exactly the case for a man whose family owns the Myoken Ishiharaso, a ryokan in Kirishima City, in one of Japan's southernmost prefectures. When Sugimoto talks about the Ishihara clan, he even mentions going out to "discos," so you know this friendship is long-standing. A few years ago, while he was completing a larger project in nearby Kagoshima City, the Ishiharas asked him to help renovate their inn at the same time. He happily agreed.

"The inn wasn't an unusual old building or anything like that," Sugimoto notes. Since honoring its architecture wasn't an issue, he went in a completely different direction, inspired by the abandoned stone warehouses that bear witness to the centuries-long Japanese practice of sowing, harvesting, and storing rice communally. "I suggested buying a warehouse to use as an addition, rather than renovating," he says. After some poking around, he found a 100-year-old example, disassembled it gingerly, transported everything to the inn's site, and reconstructed three sides of the building, replacing the entire rear facade with glass.

Built into a hillside, the warehouse became a three-story annex. The two upper levels, with two guest rooms apiece, bring the total key count to 15. "Each room has a terrace with a natural hot spring," Sugimoto points out—connecting to nature is always important to him. Downstairs is a restaurant, an amenity that had been lacking, partly for space reasons but partly because the inn prides itself on outstanding service, which includes serving meals to guests in their own rooms.

However, Sugimoto explains, "I thought it could be interesting if we created a sort of homey dining room where people could eat for a change of pace." The result is a 42-seat, 2,900-square-foot restaurant divided into a dozen semiprivate booths, some with tables and chairs to accommodate Western sitting habits. Named Shokusai Ishikura, it also serves nonguests.

Salvaged wood and other natural materials abound. Reclaimed pine appears in the form of tables and a built-in bench. Beneath the ceiling's eco-friendly bamboo rods run chestnut beams from an old residence. Most of the flooring is also reclaimed chestnut; the rest is pale gray granite. A traditional Japanese sunken hearth is crafted from stone. A latticework screen is iron.

But it's the other partitions that really show off Sugimoto's mastery and imagination. As is often the case in a Super Potato project, he assembled these architectural elements from a wide variety of unusual objects, creating an aesthetic that's something like a cross between a sculpture and a mixed salad. At Shokusai Ishikura, the ingredients include printed paper pinwheels; lacquerware; vintage metal tools, tins, and clocks; earthenware jars; and hardback books.

Most of the partition components were found within miles of the inn. Using local materials is obviously environmentally sound, but Sugimoto's decisions are predominantly driven by practicality. "I'm not strictly attached to any particular material," he says. "I like going natural, but I'll use plastic if that's what's readily available."

Teamwork and community are core concepts for him as well. While Super Potato staff members sourced some of the partition components, others came from the Ishiharas. The collaborative aspect of the mix reminds Sugimoto of the history of the warehouse itself. "A group of people pitched in to build a place to store their rice," he explains. "To continue that legacy abstractly is important to me."

PROJECT TEAM YOSHIYUKI OGURA; YASUMASA KIMURA; HIDEMI JIKEI: SUPER POTATO. DAISHO PLANNING ARCHITECT OFFICE: ARCHITECT OF RECORD. HIKARI DESIGN OSAMU WAKAI: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. SEIKO CO.: WOODWORK, IRONWORK. IZUMI STONE WORKS: STONEWORK. SOGO DESIGN CO. (INTERIOR); SOYAMA KENSETU CO. (EXTERIOR): GENERAL CONTRACTORS. PRODUCT SOURCES FROM FRONT SAITO KOUBOU: CUSTOM IRON SCREEN (BOOTH). THROUGHOUT TOKEN CO.: CUSTOM TABLES, FLOOR INSTALLATION.