Italiana Tavola D’oro was planned at the restaurant floor of a department store in Ginza.
The site was at the rearmost section of the restaurant floor, and had L-shaped with a narrow front. This meant it was difficult for people to even know the entrance was there.
The theme was how do we make the restaurant interior feel open, bright and easy to see?
Particularly, what was the way to make the appearance of a busy & lively shopfront?
Located in the mountain basin of Uonuma, Japan; the city does a complete turnaround from warm humid summers to snow covered winters. Here the temperature can reach up to 30 degree celcius in summers with over 80% humidity, while in winter the city might receive snowfall reaching up to 3 meters in height. Thus, a house built in this region needs to not only face the adversities of the land but also create an environment where the residents can thrive within their surroundings.
The conventional design approach to counter this snow is to elevate the living spaces, use mechanical means to melt rooftop snow using ground water and have thick walls with additional insulation. But all these measures create an isolation between the inside and outside. We didn't want to carry forward this convention of separating the inside and outside thus in essence propagating the feeling of being out of place within one’s own environment. We wanted the residents to fully enjoy their landscape and its setting. Thus an important factor of the design was to make this connection between the building and snow more direct.
As a symbol of Edogawa district, a complex facility “Tower Hall Funabori” is located at the center of the city. “edomachi”shop was planned at a corner of the public space on the 1st floor of “Tower Hall Funabori” which specializes in local products of Edogawa. Edogawa district has many traditions, cultures and crafts with a long history. They are still made by artisans who succeed old technique passed from generation to generation. This space was designed as a place to introduce and re-recognize the culture that Edogawa district is proud of to the world by presenting and selling handicrafts of Edogawa towards Tokyo 2020 Olympic game. The theme of this store is a bridge that connects the present and the future. “edomachi” will function, keeping the culture of this area as a information dispatch base.
Asaka project is a combination of the new small house construction and the renovation of the storehouse and the main house. These 3 buildings make a continuous scene, and holistically activate the site with the bridge connecting the buildings. The life of dwellers are shown on the bridge. The renovated storehouse and the piloty become a gallery for guests. “Moktankan” bench placed on the existing stone fence and the open deck area become the place for the communication between dwellers and guests. Asaka projects is the open-minded house which give comfortable feeling not only to the dwellers and also to the guests.
The site is located in the dense residential area of Narayama, Akita city, facing a row of a thousand cherry trees lining the bank of the Taihei River. The house is designed for a couple and their child on a small land of 92.5 msq, located at the fork of a road.
What was required from the design:
A house with the ability to open out to its the surroundings, despite the harsh Akita snow, and enjoy the view of the cherry blossom trees lining the Taihei River from the comfort of the house.
Located in Urayama, Nishi ward, Niigata City, the site is located atop a sand dune hill formed by the Sea of Japan. The site area is 200 msq; a size which makes the land too small to divide and a little too large to sell alone. The main road in front of the site, has been constructed by contributing private land from each plot. At the back of the site, a narrow lane runs through the plot and leads to a large local park.
With this site, our design direction was to maximize the utility of the open space mandated by the regulation and make it viable public space. With only 50% building coverage rate, we sought to give function to the this empty public area.
This architecture is about “shadow”. It’s a hotel named “Ninja Black”.
The site is located in the city center of Kyoto, just west of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, in an area populated with houses, small shops, apartment buildings, and hotels. We planned a small hotel of five floors with 21 rooms, on a plot of land typical in Kyoto, nine meters wide by 35 meters deep. The client for the design is from the nearby city of Kouga, known for centuries as home to ninja. He may well even be a descendant of ninja.
What does “ninja” mean for us in this design? Throughout their history, ninja have always lived in, and been associated with, “shadow”, where they can’t be seen, yet can still perform their role. Thus, this hotel’s design concept of “shadow” was born: mysterious, shadowy, and silent, yet with a strong presence.
This house was designed as a new home for a couple with a child. Located in a town away from the urban core, the couple purchased this 300㎡ piece of land that is surrounded by traditional Japanse-style houses.
The couple wanted the place to feel spacious and bright while keeping their privacy intact and blocking line-of-sight to the street-facing Southern side of the house. For that, we took inspiration from traditional Japanese-style houses to help us reconsider the relationship between the external structure and interior.
With breathtaking views of Mt. Rokko to the north and a vast waterscape to the south, Kobe sits as a strip of land with phenomenal views both inland and to the sea. Located one block from the Kobe Sea on a tree-lined boulevard that includes the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art and several national museums, the 500,000-square-foot Sun City Kobe Tower complex provides the ultimate in senior living through attention to detail and amenities, resulting in a vibrant community in which residents can thrive. The design seeks to create a living environment that represents a seamless merger of architecture, landscape, and interiors, and that celebrates this unique city and environment.
I started to teach as a professor in Waseda University Art and Architec-ture school since 2015 and it takes too much hours to commute there from Yokohama. That’s the reason I decided to construct my second house,” LOVE2 HOUSE ”. I got 31.41m2 lot in Tokyo and immediately started to design 2 stories house.
My wife had been reading the book at that time about Edo-period which says a family of 4 lives in 9.6m2 house called “Nagaya (one story small apartment)” at that time.
After reading the book she said to me ”18m2 is quite huge for two of us!” Then I shifted to design a single story house of 18.84m2.
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