A gardening warehouse in the mountains, vacant for over a decade. High ceilings, concrete floors, a tool corner that hadn't been touched in years. Most people saw a building whose time had passed. We saw a vessel.
We first encountered the space in autumn 2021 — not with a blueprint for the "ideal gym," but with a question: what is this space already telling us it wants to be?
Nomanoma is a project by Studio AKARI, an outdoor photography and documentary film studio based in Kamiyama, Tokushima. For years, AKARI's work has revolved around two things: nature and the people who live close to it. Nomanoma is what happened when that love of the outdoors asked for a permanent address — a physical space where movement and community could take root.
The name のまのま comes from Hon-noma (本野間), the district where the warehouse sits. In it, you'll find 間 — ma — the Japanese concept of space, interval, the air between things. It's the space between people. The pause between sets. The conversation that happens when you're not trying to have one.
When renovation began in December 2025, the wood for the reception desk had been sleeping in the warehouse for years. The windows, too. Rather than sourcing new materials, we worked with what was already here — and with craftspeople rooted in Kamiyama.
Noyu and Doppo, carpenter brothers from neighboring Kagawa prefecture, led the build. Their work isn't just construction. It's the kind of making where the hands that shape the wood also know the forest it came from.
Nomanoma's principle is simple: start from what's here. The best things don't arrive from somewhere far away. They're already in the room.
1,600 holes. That's how many were drilled into the plywood to prepare the bouldering walls for holds. It took a month.
Three walls — 90°, 110°, 120° — set by Takuto Koshiba, a professional route setter. Each problem is built like a story: an opening move that draws you in, a crux that tests you, and a resolution at the top. Over 30 problems now live on these walls, and they'll keep changing — because the best walls are never finished.
Renovation was completed in early 2026. Before opening day in May, friends from Kamiyama came to test-climb the walls. Some had years on the rock. Others touched a hold for the first time. They fell, they laughed, they tried again. And between attempts, conversation happened — without anyone meaning to start one.
That was the moment a bare box became a vessel.
Nomanoma is not finished. It's not supposed to be. Yohaku — blank space, intentionally left — lives in this place. It will grow with the community that uses it. What it becomes next is not up to us alone.
Still unfinished. Already home.