After hundreds of trees were removed from a resort in Japan's Tochigi prefecture, the architect set about on a mission to rescue heritage in a new landscape.

Relocating the endangered specimens to an adjacent meadow, he set about creating a breathtaking new landscape, inspired by the site’s former lives as a paddy field and forest. Water, drawn from an existing irrigation system, now fills countless irregularly spaced ponds—their curvilinear forms nestled into the moss-covered ground amid the arboreal transplants. A poetic layering of past upon present, the Water Garden, completed last summer at the Art Biotop hotel and artist residency, reflects Ishigami’s ongoing investigations merging the natural and built environments...