My Journey into Japanese Architecture

How Six Years in Japan Shaped My Life and Work

Architecture has always been more than form and structure to me. It is a language that speaks through light, texture, and the quiet balance between human life and the natural world. My journey to understand that language began in Japan, where I spent nearly six years immersed in the study of traditional architecture.

Thanks to the Monbukagakusho Scholarship from the Japanese government, I was able to complete both my Master’s and Doctoral degrees at the University of Tokyo, focusing on traditional Japanese architecture. Those years profoundly transformed my understanding of how architecture can coexist harmoniously with its surroundings.

During that time, I documented more than two hundred temples, shrines, tea houses, and dwellings across Japan, many of them closed to the public. My research centered on how architecture interacts with nature through light, views, and seasonal change. I spent countless days in Kyoto, visiting the same buildings four times a year in spring, summer, autumn, and winter to observe how each space transformed with the seasons. Through this, I began to see how Japanese architecture captures the beauty of impermanence, framing shifting colors, reflections, and shadows as nature itself becomes part of the design.

This experience revealed to me that Japanese architecture is not static; it lives and breathes with its environment. It blurs the boundaries between interior and exterior, allowing spaces to adapt to light, weather, and time. This became the foundation of my research, understanding how architecture can frame nature and invite it inside, and it remains central to how I approach design today.

Another defining part of my journey was studying in the same laboratory at the University of Tokyo that has produced some of Japan’s most respected architects. When Kengo Kuma was a student there, he studied under Professor Hiroshi Hara, one of Japan’s leading architectural thinkers. My own professor, Professor Akira Fujii, was a classmate of Kengo Kuma and also studied under Hiroshi Hara. When Professor Hara retired, Professor Fujii took over the laboratory and continued his work, guiding a new generation of architects, including myself. This shared lineage connects me to a tradition of design that values sensitivity, atmosphere, and the dialogue between architecture and nature.

My years in Japan were not only an academic journey but a personal transformation. They taught me to find beauty in restraint, depth in simplicity, and spirit in every material. These lessons form the foundation of Wabi Design.

Today, I continue to visit Japan to study new buildings and reconnect with the spirit that first inspired me. Through my work, I aim to carry forward that lineage, blending the timeless philosophies of Japanese architecture with contemporary design for a more harmonious way of living.