Shoraku-Ji is a Buddhist temple next to a cemetery in northeast Tokyo by Toru Kashihara Architects with a stepped concrete design that aims to subvert traditional temple architecture.
Located on a site surrounded by many other temples and cemeteries, all of Shoraku-Ji temple's functions ? which may have otherwise been housed in individual structures ? have been compressed into this single multi-storey building.

"The building plays a sophisticated geometric game," said Toru Kashihara Architects.
"It is not a traditional Buddhist temple form with multiple buildings across a site. Rather, it is organised into a single building of three floors."

On the ground floor is the visitor centre and an events space, and above this is a space for religious ceremonies with an altar. The top floor is a residential space for the temple's priest. Each of these levels grows in depth as they move upwards, cantilevering out to the south to create a sheltered space below, "in the same fashion as the eaves of an old temple".

The facade is split into three horizontal bands formed by overlapping concrete wall sections and glazed openings. As the floors moves upwards, the width of these wall and window sections is halved and the reveals become deeper.

At the temple's northern end, these openings all align, creating a triangular stack that centres on a view through to the altar.

"As the temple climbs in height, the boxes and gaps are half the width of those ...