# Roji (Tea Garden) (露地)

> The garden that is a path: the approach to the tea room. Stepping stones, the crouching basin and the middle gate tune pace and mind — a mountain hermitage in the city, the time of arrival designed.

- IndexStyle No.401 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/roji
- Kind: Style · Family: Garden Styles · Era: 16th century–
- Mood: Calm, Intimacy, Luxury
- Color cues: #e9e6dd / #67635d / #171615 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- Stepping-stone pacing
- The tsukubai basin
- Outer and inner roji transition
- A hermitage within the city

## Best used for

- Comparing primary sources and canonical works
- Extracting principles that transfer to other media

## Research method

This entry records a historical style; derive the treatment from its sources rather than a fixed recipe:

- Observe the letters, signs and scale of reference works
- Extract the one structure that governs gaze and information
- Verify the materials and behaviors specific to era, region and process

## What to avoid

Don't reduce it to surface signs. Verify the context of era, region, technology and makers.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] Stepping-stone pacing
- [ ] The tsukubai basin
- [ ] Outer and inner roji transition
- [ ] A hermitage within the city
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Sukiya Style (数寄屋)** — The light, informal residential style born of tea-ceremony aesthetics: slender posts, bark-edged timber, earthen walls and shoji light that let material nature and empty space become the quality of the room. Katsura became modernism's pilgrimage site. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/sukiya
- **Moss Garden (苔庭)** — The garden grown by time and humidity, typified by Saihō-ji where a hundred species of moss carpet the ground — surfaces composed only of green gradation, a demonstration of the balance between tending and letting be. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/moss-garden

## Further study

- Rikyū's view of the roji
- the placing of stepping stones
- the path to Tai-an

## Reference works

- 裏千家 — https://www.urasenke.or.jp/

## Source of record

- 裏千家 — https://www.urasenke.or.jp/

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/roji
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/roji/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)

## 日本語

茶室へ至る径そのものを庭とする形式。飛石・蹲踞・中門が歩速と心持ちを整え、市中に山居をつくる——到着までの時間をデザインする庭。

特徴: 飛石の歩幅設計／蹲踞と手水／外露地と内露地の転換／市中の山居
注意: 表面的な記号へ還元せず、時代・地域・技術・制作主体の文脈を確認する。