07 / 08Hospitality
Ember Ryokan
- Location
- Hakone, JP
- Year
- 2023
- Area
- 1,900 m²
- Typology
- Hospitality
- Status
- Completed
Narrative
A twelve-room hot-spring inn built around the memory of a hearth.
Ember replaces a ryokan that burned in 2016. The family who ran it for four generations asked that the new building remember the fire rather than deny it. The central hearth room is walled in charred timber salvaged from the ruin, and its floor is the original stone, cleaned but not repaired.
Twelve guest rooms step up the hillside behind the hearth, each with its own cedar bath fed by the same spring. The rooms are small — 34 square metres — and deliberately spare: tatami, one lamp, a low table, a window onto the trees.
The building has no signage and no lobby. Guests arrive through the hearth room, where the innkeeper meets them by the fire.
Gallery
5 plates
