The design wishes to bring to Japan the Hong Kong spatial qualities found in our city, where inside, the artists are hosts, and visitors are guests. Respecting the Japanese townscape, the proposed design is a 20m long two-storey building fronting the street. Using local materials, the house is a timber structure cladded with timber battens. It retains the natural timber internally and is painted white externally. From the street, the simple white form attracts attention to the four openings, with glimpses to people walking, chatting and cooking. Each opening leads to an alley to the garden behind, recalling the very lively alleys in Hong Kong.

Spatially, the alleys divide the ground floor into five volumes. While the building has a clear boundary between the street and the garden, these volumes are separated from each other by temporal boundaries – sliding partitions for the two exhibition spaces allowing them to be completely enclosed; and sheets of translucent clothes for others to further blur the inside-outside boundary. A kitchen, with a long bench resembling a Hong Kong street cafe, is strategically placed between the two exhibition spaces. This allows hosts to share their kitchen/ dining area with guests, and also connect the two spaces into one bigger exhibition space for other events.