The Shinjuku Sumitomo Building was built in 1974 in Tokyo’s Nishi Shinjuku district. The site’s expansive “Sankaku Hiroba” (triangular plaza) atrium roof, along with associated renovations, offer a sustainable model for addressing an emerging problem for Japan’s cities: how to carry out renovation projects on large-scale buildings using good maintenance practices. The project also represents a greater societal effort to enliven the urban business district and enhance its value as an accessible gathering place.
The site location is in the central urban area of a local city in Japan. Located in a corner of a wide area of land including the main building (Omoya) and the storehouse (Kura). Although being a central urban area, due to the recent depopulation, many vacancies surrounded it. The area itself appeared to be a place with homogenous design, needing diversity. Still, surrounding the city was a beautiful mountain landscape. This impressive view is what I decided to incorporate into my design.
OMA’s only built project in Japan up until 2012 can be found in Fukuoka. The Nexus World Housing complex was completed more than twenty-five years ago. Local developer Fukuoka Jisho commissioned Arata Isozaki to develop a masterplan that introduces a “new urban lifestyle,” for which OMA was invited as one of six architects to design a freestanding housing block.
Fukuoka is the seventh biggest city in Japan, known for its distinct cultural identity. Its central location among major cities of East Asia positions the city as a gateway into Japan, contributing to its standing as the economic center of Kyushu Island. The city has been thriving over the last decade, ranking highly in livability, ratio of younger population, and percentage of start-ups.
Article source: APOLLO Architects & Associates Co., Ltd
This residence in the mountainous region of northern Okinawa known as Gushiku Mui serves as a weekend and vacation home for a client whose primary residence is in Hokkaido. The hilltop site offers sweeping views of the ocean immediately below as well as the ambiance of the magnificent mountains behind it.
This project is an office building situated close to JR Yotsuya Station and Shinjuku-Dori Street. The site is a perfect location: its northwest side connected to the street and the east side facing a temple, thus the open view from the building is assured semipermanently. This is one of the ESCALIER series, continued from its predecessor ESCALIER Gobancho.
The architect secures three openings by lay-outing the elevator core to the southwest side. Using the maximum of a sky factor, the volumes of each floor are shifted to back and forth or right and left, so that every floor is recognized as an individual rental space while the balcony becoming as a green intermediate space between the office and the city environment. Further, the architect has introduced the idea to connect the balcony in the front side and that of the back side by a staircase starting from the ground level, and these balconies are arranged at the northeast side of the building. The connected balconies encourage an active communication between the upper floor and the lower floor, while articulating the relation and the continuity to the city.
Every W hotel is designed for its specific location with foreign designers invited to offer the fresh perspectives of an outsider. For W’s first hotel in Japan, Sekisui House and Marriott International called on the Amsterdam’s Concrete Architectural Associates challenging designers from one of Europe’s most famous harbor cities to discover inspiration in an ancient harbor city on the other side of the world.
Project team: Rob Wagemans, Bart de Beer, Julia Hundermark, Sofie Ruytenberg, Cathelijne Vreugdenhil, Femke Zumbrink, Marlou Spierts, Sylvie Meuffels, Rene Kroondijk, Erik van Dillen, Valentina Venturi, Petra Moerbeek, Minouk Balster
This house is located near the sea, about 90km away from Tokyo.This is a small weekend home for a couple who loves surfing.They can observe the waves every morning from the 2nd floor or balcony.
First, think of a small and simple 60m2 house, and then arrange (grow) the space and parts necessary for the couple’s life (the dirt floor, balcony, a little large bathroom, eaves, pergola, etc.). This method can imagine many other types of homes. This method allows a complex combination of exterior and interior spaces on large sites.
The Playhouse is a full renovation project of a three storey building located in the busy fashion district of Aoyama in Tokyo, Japan. The ground and first floor accommodate a number of British fashion brands, and the second floor houses a hall designated to a weddings and events planning company. Our team was challenged with envisioning a new spatial model of the post-COVID store by reconsidering the existing functions of brick and mortar retail.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization in our societies to a remarkable degree. What was already an ongoing movement is rapidly indicating a future in which the shopping experience will be increasingly moved to the virtual world. If the act of purchasing is preferred online, we questioned what the physical shop could offer once it is liberated from excessive display and storage space.
The Marui Group owns numerous commercial facilities in and around the Tokyo metropolitan area, many of them located in highly convenient locations such as station-fronts.
Nevertheless, the facilities were not fully utilized outside the business hours of the store, and so an idea to renovate a portion of the store into a shared residence was considered to utilize the space by switching its purposes between day and night.
A house with a Doma mixed-use ground space that connects to one another
The house stands on a 330m² plot in Takatsuki, Osaka, with an adjoining English school. Our proposal was to design the residence and school together, maintaining the connection between them while keeping the privacy of the residential space apart.
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