The Tea-Room

Japanese author Okakura Kakuzō's "Book of Tea(1906)" discusses the profound influence tea has had on Japanese culture. Chapter four The Tea-Room deals with the architecture and experience of the Tea-Room. To perhaps inspire for the new design project, here is an excerpt...

Thus prepared the guest will silently approach the sanctuary,
and, if a samurai, will leave his sword on the rack beneath
the eaves, the tea-room being preeminently the house
of peace. Then he will bend low and creep into the room
through a small door not more than three feet in height.
This proceeding was incumbent on all guests,—high and
low alike,—and was intended to inculcate humility. The order
of precedence having been mutually agreed upon while
resting in the machiai, the guests one by one will enter
noiselessly and take their seats, first making obeisance to
the picture or flower arrangement on the tokonoma. The
host will not enter the room until all the guests have seated
themselves and quiet reigns with nothing to break the silence
save the note of the boiling water in the iron kettle.
The kettle sings well, for pieces of iron are so arranged in
the bottom as to produce a peculiar melody in which one
may hear the echoes of a cataract muffled by clouds, of a
distant sea breaking among the rocks, a rainstorm sweeping
through a bamboo forest, or of the soughing of pines on
some faraway hill.

Even in the daytime the light in the room is subdued, for
the low eaves of the slanting roof admit but few of the sun’s
rays. Everything is sober in tint fromthe ceiling to the floor;
the guests themselves have carefully chosen garments of
unobtrusive colours. The mellowness of age is over all, everything
suggestive of recent acquirement being tabooed
save only the one note of contrast furnished by the bamboo
dipper and the linen napkin, both immaculately white
and new.However faded the tea-room and the tea-equipage
may seem, everything is absolutely clean. Not a particle of
dust will be found in the darkest corner, for if any exists
the host is not a tea-master. One of the first requisites of
a tea-master is the knowledge of how to sweep, clean, and
wash, for there is an art in cleaning and dusting. A piece
of antique metal work must not be attacked with the unscrupulous
zeal of the Dutch housewife. Dripping water
from a flower vase need not be wiped away, for it may be
suggestive of dew and coolness.

-Okakura Kakuzo 38-39

The full text can be found here though chapter four is probably the most relevant to design.

I am also enjoying Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's "In Praise of Shadows(1939)" which intimately explores the atmospere of Japanese architecture and discusses the beauty in shadows.