Designed to help revitalise a former whaling town in Japan’s Saga Prefecture, this airy wood and glass brewery extensively uses the historic architecture it inhabits.

Fukuoka-based architecture practice CASE-REAL designed the brewery, dubbed Whale Brewing taproom. It sits beneath the beams of an 80-year-old home in Yobuko – a once prosperous whaling town whose population has dwindled to around 6,000 today. A local restaurateur decided to launch Whale Brewing to bolster the town’s attractions, acquiring an abandoned house that had been left largely untouched before its renovations by the firm.

Firstly, CASE-REAL addressed the building’s structural issues and decay but has taken pains to preserve the historic beamed ceilings and fibre of the building.

Solid columns of Japanese cypress have been added to support the structure, which is divided into a lower section for the beer tanks and a mezzanine level that affords a closer look at the traditional wooden ceiling.

CASE-REAL has wrapped the space with a full-length glass frontage, which looks onto the street. Passersby can stop in for a beer, take a seat on the stainless steel benches and enjoy watching the world go by.

3764-4, Yobuko, Yobukochō, Karatsu-shi, Saga, 847-0303, Japan

Read next: Bologna’s medieval ‘leaning tower’ is to be fixed

Timber beams are the star at this Harrow post-medieval Hall