An engawa, 縁側, is the strip of floor that runs along the outside of a Japanese house. Under the eaves, outside the paper walls, inside the roof. It is not a corridor and not a balcony. Japanese has a word for it because the space needed one. Somewhere you can sit that is neither in the house nor out of it.
Portugal answers a related problem with azulejo, glazed tile that takes the heat and the light off a wall.
In Lisbon the two arrive in one object. The canopy at the Centro de Arte Moderna runs about 107 metres, shingled above with some 3,000 azulejos and lined underneath in ash. Kuma's office calls it the Engawa Space.
The ring is that condition. A band that reads as an edge rather than a boundary.
Inspired by Kengo Kuma and Associates' Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal. Solid sterling silver 925 with rhodium plating.