With rigorous simplicity, the upper section of this Japanese city garden in Osaka is laid with black pebbles outside a tea-ceremony room with sliding paper screens. A single plant (which is changed with the seasons - here an iris) is set in an old horse trough, while in one corner the more pebbles are piled in a mound, which becomes a symbolic island when flooded. The garden can be filled with water so that, according to the owner's feeling it functions either as a dry-stone garden or as a pond..Designers: Yasujiro Aoki and Chitoshi Kihara..