When I think about architecture, I begin by looking at the "moving materials" of a given place. This includes things such as water or air. In some cases, I will spend several years doing research. That is because I think that the origins of our culture, customs, and history lie in these "moving materials." For example, the positions of Shinto shrines, or the relationships between waterways and the terrain or terraced rice paddies, all emerged from the influence of nature. I diligently decipher the "moving materials" that are present in a place, and carefully think about how to give architecture a form suitable for that place. I build hypotheses through repeated experimentation, verification, and analysis. Eventually, the relationships between the region and its "moving materials" become legible, like a missive sent from the Earth and our ancestors across hundreds of years. As a means of elucidating this to people living several hundred years in the future, I hope to send a message through architecture. The blessings of wind directions, water flows, sunlight, moonlight, and terrain allow the nurturing of a richly distinctive culture specific to its region.
I think is my duty to connect the era in which I live to posterity, through architecture.