The quiet upgrade: HOO Cafe Kyoto moves into a Nakagyo machiya

HOO Cafe Kyoto, the coffee and donut shop born on Kiyomizuzaka, is preparing its second store inside a prominent Kyoto machiya in Nakagyo Ward, right at the city’s core. Rather than treating the property as a blank shell for a new fit-out, the project leans into the machiya’s existing character and the subtle authority of age.

Much of the building had slipped into disrepair, yet the design approach reads deterioration as a form of accumulated value, something time has already authored. The plan is structured around restraint: minimal repairs, careful reuse, and a commitment to keep what can be kept. In a typology defined by timber frames and earth-based finishes, the intervention stays close to the building’s original logic instead of overlaying it with a new identity.

To deepen the relationship with traditional construction while allowing the interior to evolve, the project brings back materials that have become increasingly rare in contemporary renovations. Doma, the earthen floor, and susa, straw mixed into plaster, are incorporated into the middle coating, not as nostalgia but as a living surface designed to change. The team anticipates that these elements will gain a more distinctive expression over time, as patina, abrasion, and everyday use slowly rewrite the space.

Furniture and fittings extend the same philosophy of reuse and quiet texture. Vintage bricks and raw-cut wood are repurposed into tables, chairs, and other tactile components, selected for their ability to harmonise with the machiya’s existing palette. Arranged within a contemporary spatial composition, these materials temper the new with the familiar, producing an atmosphere that feels serene rather than staged.

In its simplest reading, the second HOO Cafe Kyoto store is an exercise in architectural care. It offers a model for machiya renovation that prioritises longevity, material honesty, and the slow beauty of aging, allowing a coffee and donut shop to sit inside Kyoto’s historic fabric without flattening it into scenery.

Project Credit

Name: HOO Cafe Kyoto / @hoo_kyoto
Location: Kyoto prefecture, Japan
Design firm: koyori / @koyori_kyoto_japan
Photo: Junichi Usui
Completion: May 2023

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