We work across the city of Kyoto and its adjacent region of Keihoku, approaching the entire watershed as a single interconnected field.
Our bases of activity (Our Spaces), local practitioners who embody regional wisdom (Local Experts), and our own initiatives—educational programs, artist residencies, and forest stewardship (The Forest of Craft)—are all interwoven into an ecosystem. Together, they form the living foundation for the learning experiences we offer.
Critical Making at PERSPECTIVE begins not with critique, but with reawakening the senses. Through direct engagement with materials, landscapes, and embodied practices, we cultivate empathy toward others—human and non-human alike. From this space of resonance—where senses and empathy are awakened—new questions emerge: about systems, values, and the structures we live within. We see making as a way of thinking—a tactile inquiry that enables us to feel first, and critique with care.
Field research is not a detached observation for us, but an immersive process of learning with a place. We step into forests, workshops, riversides, and cityscapes to listen carefully to the voices of landscapes, materials, and communities. Using ethnographic and sensory methods, we map unseen relationships and trace the flows of culture, ecology, and economy. This embodied research practice allows participants to cultivate perspectives rooted in place, and to ask grounded, situated questions.
Craft begins with planting, and ultimately returns to the act of planting.
This is the guiding philosophy behind our Forest of Craft—a prototyping forest where we explore the relationship between making and the environment through direct experience.
To date, we have planted over 200 craft-related trees such as urushi (Japanese lacquer) on the slopes of Keihoku.
This is not merely a place of cultivation, but a learning field where we can sense the interplay between materials and ecosystems.
The shape of the forest before us is but a fleeting moment in the vast timescale of life—formed by water flowing, soil accumulating, and countless living beings threatening and nurturing each other. This forest continues to inspire those who come to explore it.
Located in Keihoku, the mountain region that once supplied Kyoto’s forests, Fab Village Keihoku (FVK) is a shared woodworking space where we reflect on the link between making and the environment.
While inspired by the global Fab Lab movement, FVK is not merely a space for digital fabrication.
It values the material wisdom and energy-conscious practices of traditional craft, grounded in the local context.
Visitors can receive guidance from experienced woodworkers and gain hands-on skills, making the space open to both seasoned makers and newcomers.
A second workshop, located nearby, offers a looser, more vernacular environment—rich with wild materials and possibilities for experimentation.
Studio Mado is a multi-purpose studio located in a former elementary school, repurposed as a base for field research and creative projects. It is within walking distance from the Residence. The name Mado means “window” in Japanese—reflecting our aim to create a space where landscape and memory, sensation and narrative, can meet and open new perspectives. The space hosts exhibitions, events with local residents, and serves as a site for thinking, making, and sharing ideas rooted in place.
Residence Fuu is a 110-year-old traditional Japanese house nestled in the Yamaguni area of Keihoku, looking out toward Mount Tendo.
Just a few minutes’ walk away, the Oi River flows gently past—a place where fireflies dance in early summer, and people come from afar in search of sweetfish in midsummer.
The house has two spacious tatami rooms, one carpeted bedroom, and a fully equipped kitchen with a gas stove, rice cooker, family-sized fridge, cookware, and tableware. The bathroom and toilet are located in a detached space off the entrance. A recently renovated workspace with a desk offers ample room for both creative work and rest.
A workshop for handcrafted wooden urushi surfboards is located on-site, along with a two-story earthen storehouse and a spacious garden—providing an open environment for living, making, and thinking.
Through long-term collaboration with craftspeople and experts who carry on place-based traditions, we have built a unique, cross-disciplinary network. What we do is simply to help edit and share the thousand-year wisdom they embody, bringing it into dialogue with the wider world. At the heart of our work lies a foundation of trust—this is our greatest asset.We share this trust only with those we consider true companions, with care and intention.
