Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA) has completed the Kibi Kogen N Square in Kibichuo, a local creative space developed around a co-working facility and a café. The city is located on the central plateau of Okayama Prefecture in Japan, an area where the country’s largest production of glulam is concentrated. This is the reason why cross-laminated timber was used in both the structure and the interior of this 585-square-metre project.

The CLT beams – 21 centimetres thick, 2.2 metres high and 35 metres long – have been stacked at different angles, clearing heights of about 4 metres between them: this uneven alignment creates a great variety of spaces and openings, dynamically diversifying the views. In particular, the space that is opened up breaks up with the conventional repetitiveness of usual glulam structures, extending the image of openness to a concept of coperation, intrinsic to the local community, consolidated by the participation of Okayama University in the project, transcending generations and boundaries between industry and academia.