EVERY COLOR YOU ARE（APART TOGETHER BENCH Ⅰ）

This is one of two benches donated to the City of Matsuyama in 2020 by a committee of local tourism businesses. The gift marked two 65th anniversaries: the first in-house hot-spring baths at Dogo Onsen's inns, and the opening of the Matsuyama Castle Ropeway. Built by Iyo Takumi-no-Kai, a group of young craftspeople from the local building trades, it stands in the outdoor space of Asuka-no-Yu, the Dogo Onsen annex bathhouse.

It was designed at the height of the pandemic that gave us the phrase "social distancing." Rather than forcing people apart, we wondered whether furniture could gently invite that behavior and create a comfortable sense of distance. The series, which we named APART TOGETHER, translates that single idea into two entirely different prototypes.

Where its counterpart in the series, THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR, is stoic and rectilinear, this bench takes on soft curves and color to harmonize with the ornate design of Asuka-no-Yu. The center of the seat rises in a gentle wave that recalls the softness of hot-spring water, the very symbol of Dogo, and that crest naturally becomes the place where no one sits. The seat is made of strips of several hardwoods in different hues, laid in random order with small gaps between them. Built to stand up to the outdoors and to be comfortable to sit on, the bench is still a place where bathers at Asuka-no-Yu pause and catch their breath.