Teahouse from Akane no Mai

Concept to Final Set for the Teahouse from Westworld S02E05 ‘Akane No Mai’. This was a location build on a backlot with concept being that we were creating an Edo period version of the main Westworld town of Sweetwater. As such, we had to balance out Edo period details, with the old west style of the original.

We had found a location on the backlot that we could transform into our Edo period street. I quickly developed our teahouse build as a 3d model, prevising out how the scripted action would work and keeping the footprint as small as possible for our limited budget. Shown here is the model in our location.

The final exterior concept based off our concept model. Adding in atmosphere and providing guidance for VFX set extensions.

A concept sketch of the interior. We wanted to contrast the warmth of the interior vs the coolness of the exterior.

The construction documents are done off the same 3D model I used for the concept so that the final build matches nearly exactly to the concept we presented.

Final Set Build. Dressed and ready to hand off to the shooting crew.