Tea House
Client
Expertise
Location
Status
Completion Year
Tea House
Full Architectural Design, Permit Process, City Approvals, Structural Engineering, Interiors, Exteriors
San Diego, California
Permitted
2026
Tea House Residence
The architectural façade responds to nature with a restrained yet precise minimalist order. Expansive horizontal windows blur the boundary between inside and outside, dissolving the presence of solid walls and amplifying the connection between people and nature. Deep eaves and extended floor planes create a sense of shelter—spaces for gathering or resting, offering shade from the sun and protection from the rain—forming a gentle transitional “gray space.”

The roof adopts a flat profile, with recessed, angled cuts at the cantilevered edges, giving it a feather-light appearance. The exterior uses granite-textured anodized aluminum panels from Pure + FreeForm, echoing the materiality used by Kengo Kuma at the Portland Japanese Garden Cultural Village, revealing a refined metallic texture that shifts subtly under different lighting angles.


The architectural lines balance the softness and fluidity of the courtyard’s dry landscape garden, creating a relationship between architecture and nature that is close yet subtly distanced. Here, people, building, and the changing seasons breathe together.