Pursuing "Creating" Independently, Exploring "Creating" with Others: Launching the Multi-purpose Complex "oniwa" in Ichijoji, Kyoto.
In 2027, the multi-purpose complex "oniwa" will open in Ichijoji, Kyoto. This facility will bring together students, creators, artisans, and local businesses to pursue individual creativity and explore co-creation with others.
📋 Article Processing Timeline
- 📰 Published: April 29, 2026 at 03:00
- 🔍 Collected: April 28, 2026 at 18:32
- 🤖 AI Analyzed: April 28, 2026 at 18:52 (20 min after Collected)
In 2027, the multi-purpose complex "oniwa" will open in Ichijoji, Kyoto, where individuals can pursue "creating" independently and explore "creating" with others.
Photography: Reo Arimoto
"oniwa" will gather individuals active in their respective fields, regardless of public or private sector, such as students and domestic/international creators based in Ichijoji, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto Prefecture, artisans involved in traditional crafts, local businesses, and government officials. "oniwa" views the creative act accompanied by each person's perspective (aesthetic sense/philosophy) as "each person's garden," and the situation that arises from the chain of individual creative acts as a "collective garden." Here, "aesthetic sense and philosophy" in "oniwa" are not defined as possessing specialized knowledge, but rather as "the gaze and perspective that each person feels comfortable with" and "situations that move the heart." By pursuing independent creation and exploring co-creation with others, the aim is for each individual to create a "situation where creating feels good."
Participants in "oniwa" include monoya, architects Shin Tomita (Hibi) and Yasuhiro Kuraoka (kraft), graphic designer Ryota Mizusako, documentary photographer Mizuki Kobayashi, project manager Shinpei Sakata (Nue Inc.), editor Moe Nishiyama, creative director Takumi Bando (POWER OF VIEW), and real estate planning by Kawabata Gumi. "oniwa" is conceived primarily by creators active in Kyoto.
The key visual is handled by graphic designer Ikki Kobayashi. Starting from creative acts that arise in daily life, forms stocked in everyday life are accumulated as a sticker book, and visuals are created through the interpretation of the relationships between shapes, arrangements, and negative space born from them.
●INFORMATION
Facility Name: "oniwa"
Opening Date: 2027 (planned)
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oniwa_kyoto
Background
Kyoto is considered the city with the highest proportion of students relative to its prefectural population in Japan.* Furthermore, Ichijoji, surrounded by many universities, is an environment within Kyoto that holds the potential to shape future industries, culture, and environment. Therefore, "oniwa" aims to open a space based in Kyoto, and by creating an environment where each person can feel that "creating feels good," it seeks to sustain culture, circulate people, and foster regional value.
* Student ratio to prefectural population / 2022 (Reiwa 4)
Concept
Photography: Reo Arimoto
A garden opened in Ichijoji, Kyoto, pursuing "creating" independently and exploring "creating" with others. "oniwa" gathers individuals active in their respective fields, regardless of public or private sector, such as students, domestic and international creators, traditional craft artisans, local businesses, and government officials. By transcending familiar places and well-known domains, and through a chain of creative acts stemming from the diverse perspectives and aesthetics of each individual, the aim is for each person to create a "situation where creating feels comfortable" and to cultivate the soil for creation.
Architectural Concept
Architecture = Expansion, as an ambiguous boundary that is not completely closed
Light enters, wind passes through, water spreads, and gazes intersect. Just as people, plants, and various coexisting objects cross physical boundaries, oniwa's architecture forms "ambiguous boundaries." It is created not to separate outside and inside, but as an unclosed entity with a gentle outline that can be expanded by natural elements and external factors.
An unfinished space updated by the aesthetic sense and philosophy of its creators
What architects create at oniwa is an unfinished space. Form creators such as furniture designers, product designers, gardeners, fabric designers, ironworkers, and graphic designers, as well as mechanism creators such as community designers, facilitators, and business designers, gather, and through the intersection of their aesthetic senses and philosophies, oniwa's design is updated daily.
Situations born from the reconstruction of relationships
Deviating from fixed ideas and general formats for the dimensions, materials, and physical combinations that constitute architecture. The discomfort arising from this and the relationships born from the intersection of the gazes of the creators gathered in the space generate new seeds of creation, and while influenced by the surrounding environment, the relationships born within oniwa transform and evolve.
Team
monoya: Director
Takumi Bando (POWER OF VIEW): Creative Director
Shin Tomita (Hibi): Architectural Design
Yasuhiro Kuraoka (kraft): Architectural Design
Ryota Mizusako: Content Design
Moe Nishiyama: Concept Design + Editing
Shinpei Sakata (Nue Inc.): Project Manager
Mizuki Kobayashi: Documentary Photography
Veig: Planting Plan
Contact: Kawabata Gumi Co., Ltd. Kawabata
Contact here
Keywords:
Photography: Reo Arimoto
"oniwa" will gather individuals active in their respective fields, regardless of public or private sector, such as students and domestic/international creators based in Ichijoji, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto Prefecture, artisans involved in traditional crafts, local businesses, and government officials. "oniwa" views the creative act accompanied by each person's perspective (aesthetic sense/philosophy) as "each person's garden," and the situation that arises from the chain of individual creative acts as a "collective garden." Here, "aesthetic sense and philosophy" in "oniwa" are not defined as possessing specialized knowledge, but rather as "the gaze and perspective that each person feels comfortable with" and "situations that move the heart." By pursuing independent creation and exploring co-creation with others, the aim is for each individual to create a "situation where creating feels good."
Participants in "oniwa" include monoya, architects Shin Tomita (Hibi) and Yasuhiro Kuraoka (kraft), graphic designer Ryota Mizusako, documentary photographer Mizuki Kobayashi, project manager Shinpei Sakata (Nue Inc.), editor Moe Nishiyama, creative director Takumi Bando (POWER OF VIEW), and real estate planning by Kawabata Gumi. "oniwa" is conceived primarily by creators active in Kyoto.
The key visual is handled by graphic designer Ikki Kobayashi. Starting from creative acts that arise in daily life, forms stocked in everyday life are accumulated as a sticker book, and visuals are created through the interpretation of the relationships between shapes, arrangements, and negative space born from them.
●INFORMATION
Facility Name: "oniwa"
Opening Date: 2027 (planned)
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oniwa_kyoto
Background
Kyoto is considered the city with the highest proportion of students relative to its prefectural population in Japan.* Furthermore, Ichijoji, surrounded by many universities, is an environment within Kyoto that holds the potential to shape future industries, culture, and environment. Therefore, "oniwa" aims to open a space based in Kyoto, and by creating an environment where each person can feel that "creating feels good," it seeks to sustain culture, circulate people, and foster regional value.
* Student ratio to prefectural population / 2022 (Reiwa 4)
Concept
Photography: Reo Arimoto
A garden opened in Ichijoji, Kyoto, pursuing "creating" independently and exploring "creating" with others. "oniwa" gathers individuals active in their respective fields, regardless of public or private sector, such as students, domestic and international creators, traditional craft artisans, local businesses, and government officials. By transcending familiar places and well-known domains, and through a chain of creative acts stemming from the diverse perspectives and aesthetics of each individual, the aim is for each person to create a "situation where creating feels comfortable" and to cultivate the soil for creation.
Architectural Concept
Architecture = Expansion, as an ambiguous boundary that is not completely closed
Light enters, wind passes through, water spreads, and gazes intersect. Just as people, plants, and various coexisting objects cross physical boundaries, oniwa's architecture forms "ambiguous boundaries." It is created not to separate outside and inside, but as an unclosed entity with a gentle outline that can be expanded by natural elements and external factors.
An unfinished space updated by the aesthetic sense and philosophy of its creators
What architects create at oniwa is an unfinished space. Form creators such as furniture designers, product designers, gardeners, fabric designers, ironworkers, and graphic designers, as well as mechanism creators such as community designers, facilitators, and business designers, gather, and through the intersection of their aesthetic senses and philosophies, oniwa's design is updated daily.
Situations born from the reconstruction of relationships
Deviating from fixed ideas and general formats for the dimensions, materials, and physical combinations that constitute architecture. The discomfort arising from this and the relationships born from the intersection of the gazes of the creators gathered in the space generate new seeds of creation, and while influenced by the surrounding environment, the relationships born within oniwa transform and evolve.
Team
monoya: Director
Takumi Bando (POWER OF VIEW): Creative Director
Shin Tomita (Hibi): Architectural Design
Yasuhiro Kuraoka (kraft): Architectural Design
Ryota Mizusako: Content Design
Moe Nishiyama: Concept Design + Editing
Shinpei Sakata (Nue Inc.): Project Manager
Mizuki Kobayashi: Documentary Photography
Veig: Planting Plan
Contact: Kawabata Gumi Co., Ltd. Kawabata
Contact here
Keywords: