Muwa Niseko
Ski-in, ski-out hotel in Grand Hirafu by Nikken Sekkei, with a cantilevered open-air onsen facing Mount Yotei.
- Neighbourhood
- Grand Hirafu, Niseko, Hokkaido
- Status
- Open
- Design
- Nikken Sekkei
Why we recommend it
Muwa combines two things that seldom come together in Niseko: direct access to the piste and a building of real architectural ambition. Nikken Sekkei has treated a condominium hotel as a piece of landscape, and the result is a group of roofs around a garden of maples.
The bath is the other reason. The infinity onsen is set at the highest point of Grand Hirafu, according to Tokyo Weekender, and looks straight at Mount Yotei; the penthouses add private saunas and their own open-air baths. The hotel also arranges private, customised tours for its guests. It suits skiers who want a contemporary Japanese setting, and families or groups who need several bedrooms. The alternatives are set out in our guide to where to stay in Niseko, from Hirafu to Hanazono and Niseko Village.
Rooms & Suites
Accommodation is in Deluxe Rooms and King Suites with mountain views, suites of two to four bedrooms for families and groups, and penthouses of four and five bedrooms, which have a private sauna and a private rotenburo, an outdoor Japanese bath. Some rooms have their own onsen bath. The units are individually owned. Each has a cylindrical balcony, the architects’ modern version of the engawa, the veranda of the Japanese house; in the penthouses the folded form of the roof is carried into the interior.
Dining
Tokyo Weekender reports two restaurants. Hito by Tacubo is the all-day Italian restaurant, conceived by Daisuke Takubo, owner and chef of the Michelin-starred Tacubo, where seasonal Hokkaido ingredients are cooked over a wood fire. Hiyama is an outpost of the Tokyo sukiyaki house of the same name, serving Kuroge Wagyu beef with local produce. As restaurant line-ups change, the current list is best confirmed with the hotel.
Outside the hotel, OKYTO’s Niseko pages include Kamimura in Niseko and Rakuichi Soba in Annupuri.
Design
Nikken Sekkei designed the building for Hanwha, with Taisei Corporation as contractor. The site is within a national park, where the Natural Parks Law governs height, setbacks, roof shape, materials and colour, and the architects answered with gabled roofs of varying pitch that follow the plan beneath them and recall the traditional landscape of Hokkaido. The structure is designed for heavy snowfall.
The entrance, reception, restaurant, spa and hot springs are on the basement level, set around a courtyard called the Four Seasons Garden, which is planted with native Japanese maples and paved with rock excavated from the site. The interiors use latticework and earthen walls. The sixth-floor bath is carried on a cantilever of about six metres, and the top floor sits under a folded-plate concrete roof.
Wellness & Spa
There are open-air baths with views of Mount Yotei on the ground floor and on the sixth floor, the latter the hotel’s infinity onsen, and further hot-spring baths and the spa on the basement level. Spa treatments use natural, native ingredients, and private tea ceremonies with local herbs are offered as part of the onsen experience.
Location
The hotel is in Grand Hirafu, on the Hirafu slopes, in the town of Kutchan. Skiing runs into April; in summer the area offers hiking and sea kayaking. Skye Niseko, a ski-in, ski-out condominium hotel, has an address in the same block, and Sansui Niseko and Setsu Niseko are elsewhere in Hirafu.
- Address
- 10-1, Niseko Hirafu 1-jo 3-chome, Kutchan-cho, Abuta-gun, Hokkaido, Japan
- Website
- Official website
