This is a project of a small funeral home in Sapporo City, Hokkaido Prefecture. 

We thought about how a space could come closer to someone who passed away tried to produce an unusual space different from daily life for intentionally bringing distance among the deceased person, the family of the deceased, and attendants at a ceremony come close together.

"Interior spaces with each individual functionality", units, are labeled in various colors, and distributed them around with in-between spaces among others.

A large box with the ceiling height of 4m is placed above those units, floating over to envelope them.The gap between those units becomes an ambiguous space by being either inside or outside, "an interior space as if like an exterior space", a gap.

When walking through the gap, it makes you feel as if walking on an alleyway,visiting and staying at a new village.

Some benches and sofas are placed in the gap space to utilize them to form gathering spaces.

Since rarely meeting relatives would participate in a funeral ceremony, pleasant distance is maintained by adjusting gaps.

Guiding circulation is created from the gap (exterior-like interior space) to each unit (interior space with each functionality), by leading everyone to pass through the gap.

As attendants of a ceremony move through the gap, they are guided to a hall.

This hall is connected with the gap in the same ceiling height of 4m,

so that attendants are suddenly brought into a wide open space.