In the Japanese hot-spring city of Atami, more than a thousand years of onsen culture have shaped the landscape, once cherished as a retreat for shoguns and statesmen. Atami was also known as a prominent hanamachi—second only to Kyoto as a geisha district—yet that world, too, has largely disappeared. Yet between the 1960s and 1980s, during the era of rapid economic growth and the bubble economy, much of this historic urban fabric was erased. The intimate streetscapes of the old onsen town have nearly vanished, leaving only a scattering of small houses and traditional restaurants that slipped through the waves of development.
This project is URBAN PATCH’s response to that loss: an urban intervention that begins with the purchase and self-renovation of a former geisha okiya—a geisha house where practitioners once lived, trained, and belonged. By preserving its spatial structure and atmosphere, we explore contemporary ways of engaging with Atami’s hot springs that remain rooted in the city’s own memory. The building will function as both a small-scale accommodation and a time-limited art gallery, operating as a living fragment of Atami’s disappearing onsen streetscape and a catalyst for new forms of urban life. The project is currently under construction and scheduled to open in spring 2026.
