Assemble

LS I feel it’s essential for a space to feel welcoming and for its intended use to be clearly communicated. It also needs to be firmly rooted in Toyama and closely connected to the local community. Visitors from around the globe are expecting to connect with the local culture, not see some kind of generic and internationalized “anywhere in the world” space like an airport, where it’s impossible to sense the local identity.

AR When we visited Toyama, we were shown around by local people, tried all sorts of regional dishes, and discovered many different crafts and local customs. The hospitality we encountered there has inspired both the design of the campsite and the overall visitor experience.

ML The more site-specific it is, the more exciting the place becomes. At the same time, diversity and equality are also vital so that everyone can experience and have access to it. Of course, different people may take different things away from the same experience, and I’d love to see how visitors actually respond. I’m sure they’ll have a wide range of reactions and perspectives, and that variety is something I’m really looking forward to.

LS There’s a common assumption that once an architect designs a space, it stays that way permanently. In reality, true maintenance involves adapting the space over time to fit the changing needs of the people who use it. It’s impossible to predict everything from the outset, and what people need will change with circumstances and generations. So, it’s about ensuring that our designs can incorporate changes we can’t even imagine.

ML There’s always an element of playfulness in Assemble’s design approach—like re-looking at things in unexpected ways or seeing something the same thing you see every day, but in a different way. Children are really good at this: for instance, they’ll hold something up to their face and pretend they’re on FaceTime or imagine it’s a smartphone. That kind of imagination is at the heart of play. It’s not just about having a single, didactic way of using the space; it’s about creating opportunities for children to make up their own. Children can open up new possibilities we never would have considered. That sense of freedom and experimentation is what makes play meaningful. Also, through our work with Penny Wilson and Assemble Play, theories of Loose Parts (coined by Simon Nicholson) have influenced how we think about designing spaces for play.

LS What we’ve learned from our previous projects is that children only need a safe place to play. They don’t necessarily need specific pieces of equipment that adults have decided are fun or not. In Glasgow, for example, we built a play area where children used things like shopping trolleys, drainage parts, and scaffold boards as their play equipment. All we really provided was food and a safe place. There wasn’t a designated “play space,” yet the children turned the entire area into a place for play in ways we can’t imagine.

AR One of the reasons we wanted to preserve as much of the existing rice paddy topography as possible is precisely that sense of discovery. The original landscape is already quite dynamic, so we’re using those natural features to create hidden pathways between different heights. We hope that wandering along these paths will feel like an exploration, with opportunities for surprising discoveries. This makes diverse features throughout the campsite, ensuring that each visit brings something new to discover. We’re also considering choosing and arranging plantings so visitors can feel the seasons. If different plants flourish at various times of the year, someone who came before can return to find a completely transformed landscape. That sense of constant change and discovery—where you could visit four times a year and see four different scenes—is truly exciting.

LS Play is something that you can do alone or with other people. It’s also important for children to meet and play with other children without always having adults present nearby. Balancing that need for privacy or hiding places with the overall function of a campsite can be tricky from a design perspective, but it’s a challenge we’re eager to take on.

LS It truly varies depending on the project’s context—its location, the client, and the community. Sometimes, we simply design something based on someone’s needs; other times, we lead a project or advocate for a particular concept. We might also work more as artists, creating something beautiful or researching different ways of doing things.

ML We’re always learning new things and bringing them into our projects. In the context of Play Earth Park , one of the skills we bring is that of an architect. We have been using drawings and models, or prototypes, as communication tools, inviting feedback from others to shape the design. Given our background and interest in education, we also like to think about educational aspects—ways to connect people with a place through learning. Sometimes, that involves events where we bring in people’s existing skills or interests.

AR For this project, we’re also collaborating with local industries. It’s not just about sourcing building materials; we’re looking to create new cycles within the local economy and potentially spark new independent ventures inspired by the ideas that emerge from this project. It’s a different approach to collaboration that goes beyond simply procuring resources.

LS One nice aspect of this project is that Goldwin is deeply rooted in Toyama. In some projects, the client may have no relationship with the site in which they are planning. So, they lack local knowledge and don’t necessarily understand what’s needed. On the other hand, Goldwin has been in Toyama for many decades. They have their own facilities and hire people with strong local ties, and in our experience, they do a wonderful job connecting with the local community.

ML “Naturing” brought up a lot of questions and reflections for me. I guess we were interested in the question of, “What is nature?” We all are here, and it all happened naturally, somehow, yet at the same time, places like rice paddies are clearly manmade. That leads to other questions: if we create something to look “natural,” is it really natural? And what about the soil, the trees, and the plants on a given site? How do they fit in? At the same time, for a project to be beautiful, meaningful, and sustainable over the long term, we can’t just consider what grows there; we also need to understand how local people already interact with nature and their knowledge of it. It’s about collaborating with nature and the community that knows it best.

LS As Maria said, if the original natural environment no longer exists—if it’s been replaced by artificially created landscapes like rice paddies or planted forests—we can’t simply “bring back” untouched nature. But what we can do is try to improve aspects of it that matter, such as biodiversity. For instance, is single-crop rice farming good for the soil or pollinators? The same questions apply to the forest. Our site isn’t huge, but even on a small scale, we’d like to look for ways to make incremental positive changes through this project.

ML That’s probably the essence of “Naturing.” Interestingly enough, it also hints at “nurturing,” which I find quite clever.

LS Yes, and it involves so many considerations: biodiversity, water management, soil management, and how we approach construction. Can we build in an eco-sensitive way? Are we doing it in the best possible manner, and how do we minimize negative impacts? We have to build in a way that feels non-destructive to nature. And that extends beyond just this site or region; choices made here can affect Japan and even worldwide.

ML Of course, ensuring a great experience at the campsite itself is essential—how people can really enjoy what nature is there, whether “natural” or partly manmade. We want to figure out how best to offer that experience.

AR For example, we’ve discussed how to utilize the paddy drainage system so campers can hear the flowing water—maybe even use it as an acoustic barrier. In other words, we’re thinking about how every element of the camping experience can be intentionally designed.

LS We also focus on minimizing our impact on the natural environment regarding construction. Building something demands a lot of energy and resources, so preserving the site’s bare landscape and keeping construction to a minimum helps the existing ecosystem. As a result, it’s gentler on the environment and brings out the site’s inherent charms to their fullest potential.

ML We hope visitors can have fun and relax! We hope there is an element of DIY culture across the camping experience – from using productive planting to make things (for example, the coppice timber used to make furniture) to cooking together in the communal cooking building. Perhaps visitors will also experience the slightly surreal landscape context of the rice paddy fields, learning about that part of Japan and how we connect to the land around us. 

LS This continues throughout the design of our buildings, where the finishes and the timber structure itself all come from the site or nearby sources (cedar trees, site clay, rice plants, copper waste, etc). By integrating these local resources, we’re weaving a more cyclical relationship with nature into the space.