Thomas Heatherwick, famous for works such as the opening pedestrian bridge in west London that curls up into a ball, B of the Bang at the Manchester Stadium and the Blue Carpet in Newcastle, was asked by a Japanese Buddhist priest of the Shingon-Shu sect to build a temple in the South of Japan.

The place, called Shiroyama on the outskirts of Kagoshima on a hillside, is where the final battle between Saigo Takamori with his samurai soldiers and the imperial forces took place in 1877. 20,000 people were killed on both sides. Now that the priest is living on the site in a little cabin, the people of the village say that his presence is finally purifying the land.

The design of the building is inspired by the cushion that the statues of Buddha sit on. Heatherwick teased a piece of fabric into shape and then scanned it using equipment from a nearby hospital that is normally used to scan faces before cosmetic surgery.

The building will be made of layers piling up on top of each other: layers of glass and about 450 layers of plywood. Each step will have a slight angle to it, so the water runs off.

The light will be coming in through thick layers of glass that go through the entire building.

Read the interview of the designer in PingMag.