The Beppu Kannawa Jigoku Onsen Museum is an immersive "academic entertainment" facility in Beppu, Oita, Japan, opened in December 2022. Conceived by design practice Tanseisha and architect Yusuke Okada, the museum takes visitors on a 50-million-year journey beneath the earth—following rainwater as it seeps through rock, heats underground, and resurfaces as Beppu's famed thermal springs.
We are proud to have supplied custom water ripple sheets for the museum's interior feature surfaces. Set within the narrative "湯だまりの世界" (Underground Hot Spring Pool) zone, the undulating mirror panels evoke the translucent, shifting surface of thermal water deep below ground. Light and steam from the adjacent onsen source refract across the ripple texture, creating a constantly moving liquid reflection that blurs the line between architecture and water.
The result is a space where visitors feel surrounded by—rather than merely looking at—the hidden thermal world beneath their feet. A natural pairing of craft material and thematic storytelling.
