Sora no Mori
A tea house is one of the oldest kinds of space built just to slow you down — somewhere you go to actually be where you are.
- Year
- 2026
- Section
- Concept
- Keywords
- responsive space · touchdesigner · tea ritual
- Role
- Project Lead, Effect Lead
- Team
- Sky ChengViolet Cancro
A new take on the tea ceremony.
Sora no Mori asks: what if the room itself could respond to you? Not louder, not flashier — just quietly alive to whoever's inside. We built it as a living, interactive space in TouchDesigner.
A living space, built in TouchDesigner.
Four elements, one experience
It's all about contrast — calm in the middle, life around the edges. Every piece is there to blur the line between nature and building, and between watching the space and being part of it.
The first breath. You step in, and little leaf-like particles drift around the stones under your feet. The forest notices you're here — quietly, no instructions. You're in.
You sit down, and the zen garden is your table. Sand, stone and light move with your hand as you reach across — like raking a garden. This is where the meditation happens: cup in one hand, the other drawing slow lines.
Look up. Soft, glowing particles drift across sheer white fabric, like breath you can see. Long trails of warm light float through the dark — slow, quiet, weightless.
Now the whole room breathes together. Ambient music moves like water, slow and without edges, and every surface carries the same quiet current. You're not watching the space anymore — you're inside the sound of it.
A sealed glass cylinder with a living zen garden inside — bamboo, stone, mist. It anchors the whole room. You can't touch it. You just get to sit with it.
A few low tables, placed quietly inside the frame. This is where you sit, pour, and watch the light respond to your hands. No rush.
A wooden grid with sheer fabric panels wraps the space. It softens the light, catches shadows, and turns into a projection screen once it gets dark. Inside and outside start to blur.
Where it is right now
Right now the zen garden table works — the particles follow your hand in real time, using MediaPipe and TouchDesigner. That's our proof of concept. Next, we want to grow the same system across the whole room: the entry, the table, the panels, the sound.