Two small white houses sandwiching the trees in the courtyard.
The "L'Espoir BLANC" single house-shaped building in Okamoto Kobe-city, runs the cafe and sweets shop. Seen from the street in front, an unobstructed view of the sky above the Mt.Rokko comes through the full-scale glass window of the third floor. There is no other building with such an open-minded structure elsewhere along this street.
The building is made of two small white houses, which are connected orthogonal to the street with a green courtyard, which allows natural light to flood into the open structure. And two white houses make a kind of tunnel running from the north to the south with walls in the west protecting the shop from strong sunset light. Three pieces of skip-stop floors with steel-frame of same thinness as a sash make the three-stories tunnel made of concrete. Through the courtyard people on the floors of two houses can exchange glances.
A kitchen on a contralateral half basement across the courtyard can give a chance for guests to take a look at making sweets through the roadside shop and the courtyard.
The shops are unified all with a white color taking a harmony to the brand concept, "blanc(white)". Ceilings, walls, floors, tables and even chairs are painted with a special white, which was made of several types of white paints with different reflection and tone, reminiscent of a delicate touch of a picture surface.
The light from the north and south creates delicate temporal shadows on the surface of the white painted matters in the shop. Various whites from ceilings, walls, floors, tables, and chairs are harmonizing and blending in light. Among them, only sweets appear to be floating above the white plate on the table. The interior and furniture has become a vast bowl for sweets.
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