From the architect. THE25 is an exhibition, relaxation and communication space. It consists of a open space with a central bar, framed on one side by a meeting room and on the other by a terrace. A service hallway serves as a library and accommodates the utilities (toilets, mechanical room…). All of this is illuminated from above by a sawtooth roof as the site is firmly wedged into the existing urban fabric.
The building was built on top of three basement levels. In order to encourage the use of the lower level areas (even during construction), the structure of the new building has been reduced as much as possible, hence the use of a prefabricated metallic trellis structure.
From the architect. A medium density housing development on a small 564 sq.m Mount Victoria site in central Wellington, New Zealand. There are seven single-level apartments and one two-level apartment, spread over three stories, with a clock tower defining the street corner. The complex sits over a below grade carpark with light timber framing clad in corrugated iron and plastered concrete panels. These provide a variety of textures that help relate the building to its context.
The building is arranged around a north facing open courtyard containing a mixture of public and private spaces at ground level. Each apartment connects visually to the street and this common space. Living and outdoor spaces are private and light filled with varieties of views. The indoor-outdoor connections are expressed as projections added to the façade, which give comfort and privacy to the inhabitants and allow the building to express itself to the street.
The mixture of apartment sizes and their relationships enable the development to read more as a village than a housing complex, allowing a connection with the surrounding Mount Victoria neighbourhood.
From the publisher. JA 101 is the second of the anniversary issues celebrating the 60th year of JA (Japan Architect) magazine.
This issue features important texts on Architecture in Japan, published in JA since 1950’s, by Kazuo Shinohara, Seiichi Shirai, Kiyoshi Seike, Toyo Ito, Kenzo Tange, Kiyonori Kikutake, Rafael Viñoly, Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma, Kazuyo Sejima, Arata Isozaki, Hisao Kohyama, and Ken Tadashi Oshima
Contents
FOREWORD 004 ArchitectureーEraーDiscourse Ken Tadashi Oshima
HOUSE 006 JA August, 1964 The Three Primary Spaces Kazuo Shinohara 020 JA March, 1966 Kenzo Tange on Residential Design Kenzo Tange Interviewed by Kazuo Shinohara 034 JA April, 1971
BEYOND SYMBOL SPACES AN INTRODUCTION TO PRIMARY SPACES AS FUNCTIONAL SPACES Kazuo Shinohara 050 JA August, 1956 The Tradition of the Jomon Culture Seiichi Shirai 052 JA February, 1963 The Ridge-support Post Kiyoshi Seike 056 JA February, 1972 The House as Architecture Kazunari Sakamoto 064 JA February, 1972 Designing the Result of One’s Own Warped thought Processes Toyo Ito
URBAN 072 JA September, 1960 Architecture and Urbanism II. Technology & Humanity Kenzo Tange 078 JA January-February, 1971 Connections between Environment and Architecture Kenzo Tange×Kiyonori Kikutake 092 JA3 TOKYO 1991-3 Urban Context and Design Interview with RAFAEL VIÑOLY
PHILOSOPHY 102 JA June, 1978 The Wall as Territorial Delineation Tadao Ando 106 JA6 EMERGING IDIOMS 1992-2 Beyond Dichotomy Kengo Kuma 112 JA6 EMERGING IDIOMS 1992-2 My Recent Projects Kazuyo Sejima 118 JA12 ARATA ISOZAKI 1993-4 Construction Site Arata Isozaki
ARCHITECT 124 JA59 JUNZO YOSHIMURA 2005 Junzo Yoshimura The Sole Classicist of Modern Japan Hisao Kohyama 130 JA33 ANTONIN RAYMOND 1999 Designing from the Health The Architecture of Antonin Raymond Ken Tadashi Oshima
From the architect. As a result of a particular programmatic condition, the workshop-house project was conceived to host a residence, a high-performance mechanical workshop and classrooms in a 260m² terrain located in the Pinheiros neighborhood, São Paulo.
Diagram 4
The programmatic activities were distributed in a specific way so it was possible to take the greatest advantage from the functional and legal point of view. The result is a separation of the program in three levels: ground-floor, which hosts the mechanical workshop activities, revisions, repairs, part-washing and a dynamometer room for vehicle testing; first floor, where the classrooms, study rooms and bathrooms are located; and second floor, place for the residence.
All the activities are administered by one only inhabitant who breaks down his daily schedule along the different spaces, each one of them with particular characteristics. When all these are incorporated together, the relationship becomes a generator of a specific morphology that could only be a consequence of the conditions that gave origin to the project.
The concrete inclined slab gathers a major role among the whole composition as an element capable of offering diverse solutions. It embodies the visual limit between the public and private realms, while it shelters the upper domains from noise pollution and the mechanical equipment on the ground-floor. Simultaneously, it enhances natural ventilation and illumination for the workshop and classrooms, while facilitating rain water capturing for reuse.
The relationship between the building and the city is compelling, as the composition draws back voluntarily from the terrain’s limits and frees the urban corner in a gentle manner, favoring the materialization of a place for gatherings and urban encounters along its surroundings.
Budapest-based Hello Wood has announced an open call for team-leaders to participate in its award-winning summer school from July 14-22, 2016. The eight day Project Village program focuses on envisioning a design for a “new village model,” and then on building the imagined projects. The 2015 program brought together academics and students from more than 30 countries and 25 universities. This year, Project Village is looking for experienced architects, designers and artists to join the team in western Hungary, only two hours away from the capital.
The theme for the 2016 program is “Settling: The Rituals of Arrival,” which will explore the ways communities make themselves feel at home. Participants will be asked to build “a place of arrival, permanence, and connection,” exploring in their designs the architectural aspects of settling, what makes a place feel like home, and the roles of hosts and guests.
Team leaders will help participants plan a village while aiding in the building construction phase. They will also help transform these nomadic objects into something settled. Confirmed team leaders so far include Russian sculptor Nikolay Polissky, German architect Markus Heinsdorff, Urban Think-Tank and Kosmos Architects.
The school focuses on conceptual design and “thinking with your hands.” Through the construction of the building, a series of lectures, and chances to socialize, connect, and reflect, participants will learn about the project and the site. A team of cooks, musicians, bartenders, baristas, and other craftspeople will participate in the newly found social scene of the village.
The 2015 program designed a “nomadic moving settlement” created out of three cubic meters of wood. These installations were later used by festivals and cultural events in the country. Some of the designs created included a Rolling Pub, a Village Cinema, and a Migrant House.
To participate in this summer workshop, applicants will go through a two-stage selection process. Registration needs to be submitted by April 15, 2016 and project proposals need to be submitted by May 1, 2016. Each team leader will have a team of 10 people. Food and accommodation will be provided.
This single-family residence that sits atop an existing flat pad features a façade held in place by a high-performance two-sided architectural panel tape. The owner of the home was an executive of 3M, which is where this tape was developed and to our knowledge is the first application for a residential home.
The house sits within an existing development with rules restricting development to the current flat pad and limiting height to 14 feet above grade. The single story house is a rational arrangement of equal bays with private and public functions on either side of two courts that create a swath of light, water and space through the middle of the building. A clerestory running east-west brings south and north light into the galleries and secondary spaces, while a 25 foot cantilevered trellis protects the southern patio and pool from neighbors above and frames sweeping uninterrupted views of the Los Angeles Basin to the south.
Plan
There is one single material for flooring through the entire house and outside courts and patios, creating a massive plinth that the rest of the house sits on. With a deliberately limited material pallet the house forms a set of protected quiet spaces for contemplating the landscape.
The exterior of the house is wrapped in anodized aluminum slats held in place by a high strength tape used in aircraft production developed by 3M, where the client was a scientist, manager and vice president.
From community meeting hubs to secluded refuges, places to learn and places to study, libraries can be so much more than just a place to a check out a book. With this in mind, we’ve rounded-up 15 awe-inspiring libraries, including a Canadian church that was converted into a library, the first library in Muyinga, Burundi – built using participatory design and local materials – and the largest academic library in Finland. See what makes each of the libraries unique after the break.
Strasbourg’s National University Library (BNU) found new life in this rehabilitation project by ANMA. Located in a building from the German-occupation period (1871), the architects sought to maintain the monumental architecture style, emphasizing the molding and dome on the outside, while at the same time creating newer, modern spaces on the inside. A 27-meter spiraling staircase connects all of the library’s floors.
While not technically a library, this bookstore – and 2015 Building of the Year winner — in São Paulo functions like one in many ways. Seeking to go beyond being a merely a place to purchase books, the architects sought to create spaces for people to read, hang out and meet up. To achieve this the top floor features 21-meter-wide bleachers, providing a place for visitors to sit and read as well as a spot where small concerts and lectures can be held.
Built specifically for travelers, this library in South Korea is the perfect place for those with wanderlust. Seeking to create a form of travel itself, the library “exhibits a thick accumulation of information, experience and objects, including a bookshelf that covers the entire wall from floor to ceiling.”
Known as the “Factory of Words,” this library in Portugal gets its nickname from its location on a site formerly occupied by a rice mill. A large triangular window cuts through the floors, providing natural light and connecting the building’s different spaces.
Enjoy the view of reading on the beach, but without all the sand (and no sunscreen required) in this seaside library in China. Designed to look like “weathered rock” each room in the library offers a unique connection with the ocean, letting in different amounts of light, wind and sound.
Designed especially for children (and for the inner child in all of us), this bookstore and café in Colombia contains nooks for reading, drawing, resting and playing. There are also private reading rooms and tables for meeting up and chatting.
This community lending library in Canada pivots open (like the covers of a book) during the day, inviting people to read inside and on the lawn in front. Featuring vertical slats of different sizes, the library allows light to filter through when closed, offering views of the book spines at the widest openings.
Offering a quiet refuge away from the village center, this library is nestled in the mountains, blending into the landscape and offering a secluded place to sit and read. Local materials – sticks used to fuel cooking stoves – were used to clad the building. The wooden sticks “temper the bright light and spread it evenly throughout the space to provide a perfect reading ambience.”
Located in the heart of Birmingham’s largest public square, this library has eight rotundas on the inside, each one containing a different function and culminating with the original Shakespeare Memorial Room from 1882. A cantilever provides shelter in front of the entrance and also acts as a balcony with views of events happening in the square.
Designed for students (who would presumably be spending “hundreds of hours” studying in the space), the library at the Free University in Berlin, “combines a massed concrete structure with a light diaphanous envelope.” Natural light and air fill the space and reading desks wrap around each floor, while “the bibliographic collections are housed in a four-storey central core.”
Housed within an 18th century building in Mexico City, this library occupies just a 170-square-meter space. Dedicated to Mexican author Jaime Garcia Terres, the library features two long bookshelves that “are suspended from the walls,” creating a “syncopated rhythm that mirrors the floor pattern.” An “empty bookcase” hangs from the ceiling, filtering “the light through a series of mullions modulated in the same fashion as the bookshelves.”
The largest academic library in Finland, this library was designed for a wide range of users, and includes a variety of functions such as sound-proof rooms for group work, quiet reading rooms, information and collections zones. Large arched openings give the library a distinct look from the outside and provide natural light on the inside, while the curved brick facades integrates the library “within the street line formed by the adjacent buildings.”
Inspired by vernacular design and built using “a participatory approach,” this was the first library to be built in Muyinga. “Locally-sourced compressed earth blocks” were used to allow for cross-ventilation and to give the library a luminous glow in the evening. A special reading space for children is covered by “an enormous hammock of sisal rope as a mezzanine, in which the children can dream away with the books that they are reading.”
The supporting frame of this library in the Czech Republic is the library itself, forming bookshelves that stretch from the ground to the observatory on top.
The majority of our built environment is designed for people who hear, with little regard for how the hearing-impaired navigate a space. But what would a space look like if it were designed for the deaf? This video from Vox and Curbed focuses on Gallaudet University, the world’s only liberal arts institution for the deaf, and the ways the campus is tailored to the needs of its students. By analyzing what they refer to as “Deaf Space,” the university has been able to pinpoint techniques that not only make communication and wayfinding simpler for the deaf, but to produce spaces that function more effectively and comfortably for everyone. For more on the university and how its members are impacting the architecture world, read the full article over at Curbed here.
From the architect. Situated in a suburban warehouse district in Edmonton, Alberta, the John Fry Sports Park is largely dedicated to hosting baseball games and tournaments throughout the Spring, Summer and Autumn months. At times, the site accommodates up to 5000 spectators.
Diagram
Over the past 28 years, the John Fry Sports Park has hosted a variety of world class baseball tournaments, with only portable trailers to support the needs of players and spectators.
In 2011, the City of Edmonton secured funding for a pavilion to support the increasing popularity and intensive use of the park by various baseball associations. The design team was given the task of designing a pavilion consisting of change rooms, washrooms and a concession to serve the City’s needs for the next 30 years.
The architectural challenge was to create a highly legible sense of place with an extremely constrained budget, and re-define the conventional change room typology to celebrate the playfulness of sport.
Plan
By placing the change rooms on the perimeter of the building and skinning its volume with insulated translucent panels, the design bathes the change room spaces in abundant natural light while allowing the building to serve as a way-finding beacon in the landscape after dark. Because it serves as a pre-finished building envelope system, the cladding eliminates the need for costly interior finishing materials. This same approach informs the rest of the pavilion, where structural, mechanical, and electrical elements are fully expressed.
The use of gregarious kinetic elements – including large scale doors that pivot open to define communal gathering spaces – imbues the project with an element of athleticism that is synergistic with its program, while the omnidirectional nature of the plan refutes the ‘front façade/rear façade’ model and instead offers a building that is equally legible and accessible from all sides.
RDH Architects has unveiled the plans for its Old Post Office Idea Exchange, a restoration project in Cambridge, Canada. The post office project will completely restore the existing historic building and transform it into a new space through the use of new glass additions that will increase usable space and improve accessibility.
“Combining glass structures with the heritage building will allow the historic elements to remain on display while still providing a space suited to modern use,” state the architects in a press release.
Located in a core downtown area, the Old Post Office will become a new digital library that will offer programs and services for all ages, such as 3D printers, recording suites, a teen creative space, and an onsite restaurant. Thus, the project can become a new community center and place for all to engage, collaborate, and innovate.
Sig Nordal 