STUDIO YY Shapes a Canoe Boathouse in Rural Shimane Around the Hull of a Balinese Jukung

Sports venues built for a single national event usually follow a predictable pattern: a big shed, a grandstand, and a car park. In Misato Town, a small community on the Gonokawa River in Shimane Prefecture, STUDIO YY took a different route. The Misato Canoe Boathouse, led by Tsuyoshi Nakamoto and Yuichi Tanaka and completed in 2024, will serve as a competition venue for the 2030 Shimane National Sports Festival. Its everyday role is as a training base for local canoe clubs. The two-storey timber building covers a footprint of roughly 1,035 m² on a riverside site of just over 5,000 m².

The surprise is where the architects found their references. They did not draw on Japanese temple carpentry or rural farmhouse vernacular. They looked to Bali instead. The long, gently arched roof is modelled on the jukung, the Balinese outrigger canoe. Carved stone gates, a red stone pagoda, and a lion-mask mural complete the transplant. On paper, this sounds like a theme park move. On site, it reads as something more considered: a building that treats canoeing as a shared maritime culture rather than a purely athletic one, and asks a remote Japanese town to see itself in that wider picture.

A Town Folded Into a River Bend

The aerials explain the urgency behind the project. Misato sits on a peninsula wrapped by the Gonokawa and ringed by steep, forested mountains. This is the kind of place that rarely gets new public buildings, and that has every reason to want one that draws visitors. The architects say openly that they hope the boathouse becomes a cultural landmark and a tourism asset. That ambition shapes everything that follows.

From above, the boathouse is a single long hipped roof laid parallel to the water. A smaller pavilion and a paved waterfront plaza sit beside it. The plan is simple, almost diagrammatic. All the formal energy goes into the roof.

The Roof as a Hull

The roof is the project. It is clad in Accoya, an acetylated timber chosen for durability in wet conditions. Its ridge sags into a soft concave arc, so it reads less like a roof and more like an upturned boat. The architects tie that curve to the jukung, but also to the river's flow and the ridgelines of the surrounding hills. The second reading is the more convincing one. From the walkway, the sweeping eave and projecting rafters line up with the slopes behind them.

There is also a material story here that we like. Accoya darkens and shifts in tone when it absorbs rain, so the roof changes with the weather. For a building whose users spend their lives reading water conditions, a surface that records rainfall is a quiet and fitting idea.

Floating on the Gonokawa

The architects describe a specific moment: dusk, no wind, and the building's reflection on the river resembling a floating jukung. The photographs from the far bank support the claim. The low-slung mass and its shingled roof double cleanly in the still water, and the stepped stone embankment acts as the waterline.

On race days, the image changes completely. Crews cross the course in front of the building while spectators pack the embankment. The building stops being an object and becomes a backdrop. A venue that works both as a quiet reflection and as a crowded grandstand edge is doing its job.

Gates, Stairs and Borrowed Ornament

The Balinese references are most literal at the entrance. A central stone stair climbs between rubble banks to a pair of carved gate pillars, which recall the split gateways of Balinese temples. Beyond them, a timber-framed glazed hall opens up. The terracotta and stone scrollwork is ornate in a way that contemporary Japanese public architecture almost never allows.

This is where opinions will divide. Some will see cultural borrowing pushed too far. We read it as a deliberate frame, a threshold that tells you this is not a standard municipal gym. The rough rubble base helps. It anchors the carving in local stonework, so the gates feel built into the embankment rather than placed on it.

The Pavilion and the Platform

Next to the main hall, an open timber pavilion stands on a raised platform under a hipped roof. It is the most directly Balinese element on site, close in spirit to a bale, the open-sided communal pavilion. Heavy columns and exposed rafters frame views back toward the hall, and banana plants add to the tropical register.

The photograph of a seated gathering with a drum shows why the pavilion matters. It gives the town a covered outdoor room that has nothing to do with competition. Here, the boathouse becomes civic infrastructure.

A Long Hall of Arched Trusses

Inside, the hull metaphor turns into structure. Arched timber trusses march down the length of the hall like a boat's ribs, carrying a cedar-lined ceiling. A clerestory band brings in light and frames the treetops. The structural engineering is by Yamada Noriaki Structural Design Office. The rhythm is steady and calm, and the parquet floor adds warmth that most athletic facilities lack.

The exposed silver ducts are a frank admission that this is a working building. We would have liked them handled with a little more care against the timber. Still, the glazed end walls that open the hall to the green hillside more than compensate.

Murals and Machines

The double-height entrance hall carries a tall, vivid mural of a lion mask over waves, an obvious nod to the Balinese Barong. Framed by timber trusses and glazing, it brings colour into a mostly natural palette. Without it, the interior would read as handsome but generic.

The training room is the counterpoint. Rowing machines line up against floor-to-ceiling glass, so athletes train facing the hills and the river they will race on. It is a simple decision, and it is the right one.

Boats, Dusk and Daily Life

At its core, this is still a boathouse. Racks of red, blue and white boats fill the hall under the arched trusses. At dusk, the glass bays open so the stored craft become part of the facade, while the lit clerestory glows above. Showing the equipment rather than hiding it in a back-of-house shed makes the sport visible to the town.

The image of three people practising tai chi in front of the glazed facade says something about how the building is actually used. Its forecourt has become a public space in its own right.

Plans and Drawings

The site plan sets the long building between the parking lot and a lawn running down to the river embankment, a clear sequence from arrival to water. The roof plan is the most revealing drawing. It shows the pinched, concave hip that produces the hull silhouette over what is otherwise a narrow rectangular volume. The section places the mural wall and the open pavilion side by side on ground sloping toward the river, and shows how much of the building's character comes from that tilt.

Why This Project Matters

Regional Japan is full of event venues that outlive their purpose and slowly empty. STUDIO YY treats the 2030 festival as a starting point rather than the reason for the building. Training clubs, community gatherings, and visitors all have a place here. The jukung metaphor gives the building a story that a small town can tell about itself. Its recognition as a Leisure and Sports Buildings winner at the BIG SEE Awards 2026 suggests that story is landing beyond Shimane.

The bigger lesson is about reference. Borrowing from Bali in rural Japan is a risk, and parts of the ornament walk a fine line. But the strongest moves are not decorative: the weather-sensitive Accoya roof, the rib-like trusses, and the reflection on still water. They come from thinking about boats, rivers and how people gather near them. That is a more honest basis for a boathouse than any national style.

Misato Canoe Boathouse by STUDIO YY (lead architects Tsuyoshi Nakamoto and Yuichi Tanaka), Misato Town, Shiki, Japan. Area: 1,035 m². Completed: 2024. Photography: SS/Hiroki Akita.

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