Sora no Mori
A tea house is one of the oldest forms of intentional space — designed to slow you down, to return you to presence.
- Year
- 2026
- Section
- Concept
- Keywords
- responsive space · touchdesigner · tea ritual
- Role
- Project Lead, Effect Lead
- Team
- Sky ChengViolet Cancro
Reimagining the tea ceremony.
Sora no Mori asks what happens when the space itself becomes responsive: not louder, not more stimulating, just quietly alive to the person inside it. Built as a living, interactive environment in TouchDesigner.
A living space, built in TouchDesigner.
Four elements, one experience
The space is designed around contrast — stillness at the centre, life at the edges. Every element is chosen to dissolve the boundary between nature and architecture, between observer and environment.
The first breath of the space. As you step through the entrance, leaf-like particles drift around the stones beneath your feet. The forest acknowledges your arrival — quietly, without instruction. You have crossed the threshold.
You sit. The zen garden is your table. Sand, stone, and particle respond to your hand as you reach across. Like raking a garden, like settling into ground. This is where the meditation lives — cup in hand, the other hand tracing stillness.
The space above you. Soft, luminous particles drift slowly across sheer white fabric panels, like breath made visible. Wide trails of pale, warm light move through the dark — slow, quiet, weightless. The air itself becomes something you can see.
The full space breathes as one. Sound fills the air — ambient music that moves like water, slow and borderless. Every surface carries the same quiet current. You are no longer just watching the space. You are inside the sound of it. The ocean holds you without edges.
A sealed glass cylinder holds a living zen garden — bamboo, stone, mist. It is the anchor of the space. You cannot touch it. You can only be present with it.
A few low tables placed quietly within the frame. This is where the interaction lives — where you sit, pour, and let the particle projection respond to your hands. Unhurried. Intentional.
A wood grid structure with sheer fabric panels defines the outer space. It filters light, carries shadow, and becomes a projection surface after dark. The boundary between inside and outside disappears.
Where it is right now
The zen garden table interaction is built and working — particles respond to hand movement in real time via MediaPipe and TouchDesigner. This is the proof of concept. The next step is extending the same system across the full space — entry, table, panels, surround — four elements, one experience.