Ancient trees, known in Japan as koboku, are drawn from forests that once sustained the country’s vernacular architecture. Their surfaces still bear the evidence of a long manual tradition: the precision of mortise and tenon joints, the patina of soot from domestic fires, the subtle irregularities shaped by the hatchet’s edge. Each element carries a memory of labour and of use, a material continuity between the forest and the dwelling.

SANSUI works from this inherited matter with the same economy of means that governed its first making. In the mountains of Nagano, artisans restore these timbers through a practice that values proportion, surface, and texture as expressions of time itself. The result is a series of poetic objects, bearing the weight and resonance of centuries of history.