The public toilet at Shōdoshima Island was built by Tato Architects as a part of the project of Setouchi Art Festival.
The site is in the area called "Hishio-no-sato (Native place of sauce)" where pre-modern architecture of soy sauce making warehouse remains collectively in Japan. The mentioned warehouses are authorized as registered tangible cultural property, where soy sauce has been made still in the old-fashioned formula. Inspired by the traditional cabins and large cedar barrels used in the productions of soy sauce, architects created the truly simple but strongly visual form.
The main cabin structure is based on the curved walls which create the partitions and give the functions of the space. All seems to be waving softly as a ‘cloth’ under a traditional cabin roof.
The roof with smoked and glass tiles in mosaic pattern are compatible with each other thanks to the standardization. The main intention was to create a playful game, where shades rhythmically flicker with the sun's rays during the day. The smoked tiles and glass tiles cannot easily be distinguished, during the day, from outside and may be mistaken for the same as the unevenness of the aged roof tiles of the neighborhood. But the difference appears clearly when night falls and light begins to leak from inside.
Due to circumstances on the site the construction had to be completed in about two months. Therefore architects decided to limit themselves to local resources.
