Hasta La Ideas

The latest project to complete in Toyo Ito‘s Home For All community rebuilding initiative is this timber and concrete pavilion in a Japanese fishing village, designed by Kazuyo Sejima‘s protégé Yang Zhao (+ slideshow).

Home For All in Kesennuma is the ninth building in the Home For All project, which was initiated by Japanese architect Toyo Ito just days after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, and involves the construction of new community buildings in the worst-hit areas.

Under the supervision of SANAA principal Kazuyo Sejima, Japanese Chinese architect Yang Zhao designed his building for the coastline of the Kesennuma fishing community in north-west Japan, creating a structure that can be used as a market hall, a meeting place or a performance area.

“It’s a shelter in which fishermen can take a rest, a place where the wives would wait for their husbands to return with the catch and sometimes a marketplace,” explained Zhao.

The structure was built with a hexagonal plan. Concrete walls support a large pitched roof and also frame a trio of wooden platforms that accommodate different activities.

The first platform accommodates a kitchen and can be enclosed behind sliding glass doors. The second is based on the engawa, a traditional Japanese veranda, while the third includes both toilet facilities and a seating area.

A multi-purpose space at the centre of the pavilion is exposed to the elements and features a timber-lined ceiling punctured by a large triangular skylight.

“At night, the building glows warmly from within, like a lighthouse, waiting for fishermen to come back from the sea,” said Zhao.

The floor inside the pavilion is set at the same level as the surrounding pavement so that forklift trucks can drive into the building on market days.

Photography is by Jonathan Leijonhufvud, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s more information from Yang Zhao:

Home For All in Kesennuma

The home-for-all in Kesennuma is designed and built as a gathering space for a fishing community that severely suffered from the Tsunami in 2011. It is located at Kesennuma’s Oya fishing harbour that serves as a centre for the local fishing activities and community life. It’s a shelter in which fishermen can take a rest, a place where the wives would wait for their husbands to return with the catch and sometimes a marketplace.

Most part of the space opens to the exterior. A roof, supported by 3 “rooms”, covers an area of 117 square metres. At the centre is a triangular-shaped hole in the ceiling that allows people to gaze directly at the sky. The “rooms” with lifted benches are oriented toward the centre and, at the same time, towards views of the surrounding landscape through the three entrances from different sides. The kitchen room is glazed by glass sliding doors and can be slide open in pleasant weathers. The room nearest to the water can be enjoyed as an engawa (a space underneath the eaves, an important space for Japanese architecture and daily life). The toilets are accessed and ventilated from the outside, while oriented towards the centre and the sky through the slanted glazing. The surrounding ground will be paved to the same level as the space inside, allowing forklifts to enter in market hours.

The elemental geometry of the roof creates a dome-like space underneath. Together with the plywood (Japanese cypress) materiality, it generates a warm and protective atmosphere. At the same time, the transparency of the supporting structure creates an open and welcoming character. At night, the building glows warmly from within, like a lighthouse, waiting for fishermen to come back from the sea.

The project was the collaboration between architect Yang Zhao and his mentor Kazuyo Sejima during the 6th cycle of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Art Initiative. The architects had three workshops with the local community to discuss about the design and get their approval to build. The completion and transfer ceremony took place on Oct. 27, 2013. The photos were taken on the ceremony day.

Architect: Yang Zhao
Advisor: Kazuyo Sejima
Local Architect: Masanori Watase
Design team: Ruofan Chen, Zhou Wu
Structural engineering: Hideaki Hamada
Site supervision: Takezou Murakoshi

Client: People of Ohya district in Kesennuma-city, Miyagi prefecture, Japan
Site area: 419.21m2
Built area or Total floor area: 93.45m2
Cost: 10,0000 euros
Design phase: Dec 2012 – Jun 2013
Construction phase: Jul 2013 – Oct 2013

Roof: galvanised steel sheet
Ceiling: plywood + protective coating
Exterior wall: concrete + protective coating
Interior wall: concrete + protective coating

The post Yang Zhao completes fishermen’s pavilion for
Toyo Ito’s post-tsunami reconstruction project appeared first on Dezeen.

Traditional Japanese toys inspired this modular furniture by architects Kengo Kuma and Associates for the East Japan Project.

Twelve wooden sticks slot together without glue to form the units, which combine to make shelving or tables.

The six-sided units can be connected to one another from any edge.

The Chidori Furniture is named after Chidori toys, which are made from simple wooden components with unique joints – see another furniture design based on a Japanese puzzle here.

East Japan Project brings together designers and local craft makers in the region, offering support to communities devastated by the Tohoku earthquake.

The pieces are made by skilled carpenters in the Tohoku region, which has traditionally been associated with small-scale craft manufacturing.

You can see more stories on projects supporting those affected by the earthquake here.

Here is some more information from the East Japan Project:

East Japan Project (Ejp) is a collaboration between designers and traditional craft artisans from East Japan, with the purpose to propose The New Lifestyle as a concept design for post 3.11 Tohoku earthquake. The New Lifestyle refers to a way of life that is deeply rooted in a locality. Locality is another name for the system in which every aspect of a place – climate, culture, and people – is integrated in a natural way. This system however, disappeared in the urbanized society of the 20^th century with its pursuit for efficiency and convenience. The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake in eastern Japan urges us to revisit this lost system and reevaluate its implications for a modern society.

The New Lifestyle attempts to reverse the course of the 20^th century and to revive the notion of place through the collaboration with craftsmen from the Tōhoku region in eastern Japan. – Yanagi Muneyoshi who lead the mingei (folk craft) movement of Japan in the late 1920s, once called the Tohoku region ‘the land of handcraft’.

In the framework of the East Japan Project (Ejp), to achieve this mode of New Lifestyle, the products are conceptualized as new types of daily tools with a deep appreciation of local craftsmanship and material and are to be part of a larger product portfolio called, ‘location’.

As one of Ejp Products, Chidori Furniture is a flexible system developed from the joint system of Chidori. Chidori, the name of an old Japanese toy from Hida Takayama, a small town in Japan, is originally an assembly of wood sticks with unique joints. Transformed from the traditional system of Chidori, 1 unit of Chidori Furniture consists of 12 timber sticks with different junction details. Each modular unit of Chidori Furniture can be connected to from all 6 sides making numerous combinations possible. Merely by twisting the sticks, without any nails or metal fittings, it shows a myriad of possibilities to become anything from a table to a shelf. The 2010 project GC Prostho Museum Research Center by Kengo Kuma and Associates is another project developed on basis of the Chidori system.

The junction details of the system require the high level of craftsmanship in Tohoku region to produce. One of the manufacturers, Fujisato Mokkoujo (Fujisato Woodshop) in Iwate Prefecture, is well- known for making Iwayado Tansu Drawers, which originated in the late 1700s. Their expertise in precise wood crafting and lacquer painting could produce multiple identical units of Chidori Furniture.

Chidori Furniture is currently exhibited in Bals Tokyo Nakameguro and Ginza stores and is also for sale.

Click above for larger image

Activities of EJP include:

1. Designers and craftsmen from East Japan will collaborate to develop items of daily use that provide a sustainable and minimal New Lifestyle.
2. Multiple corporations and groups will collaborate beyond the boundaries of a commercially driven enterprise and industry to develop a strong distribution and cooperative network.
3. EJP will conduct a field study and research of the unique traditional craft industry scattered in the regions of East Japan.
4. EJP will raise money from the profit of the EJP products sales to support the next generation of artisans, to acquire the skills of traditional crafts in East Japan.

See also:

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Whackpack Furniture by Brendan Magennis	Poles Apart by Adrian Bergman	Family Bench by Valentin Garal for Le Porc-Shop

Shigeru Ban Architects have designed temporary homes for Japanese disaster victims inside a chequerboard of stacked shipping containers.

Above and below: prototype unit

Once the Multi-storey Temporary Housing is constructed it will provide 188 homes in Onagawa for those left homeless by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

The containers can be placed on unlevel terrain or narrow sites and should be able to withstand future earthquakes.

Containers can be stacked up to three storeys high, with open spaces between each apartment.

The architects, who have constructed one prototype apartment, suggest that temporary residents may choose to stay in the containers permanently.

Since the disaster in Japan, Dezeen has published a few projects by designers to raise money for victims – see all the stories here.

Another recent story on Dezeen features shipping containers that provide a sea-facing observation deck – click here for more stories about container architecture.

Images are from Shigeru Ban Architects

Here’s some more information is proved by the architects:

Multistorey Container Temporary Housing

Temporary housing are starting to be deployed disaster areas.

However, the number of the amount of housing required is insufficient. The main reason is that most of the damaged coast areas are not on level terrain.

Usually, temporary housing is suitable for flatlands, and providing the required number of units is difficult.

Click above for larger image

Our project to Onagawa, Miyagi prefecture is to use existing shipping containers (20 feet) and stack them in a checkerboard pattern up to three stories.

Click above for larger image

The Characteristics of multistory temporary housing:

» shorten the construction period by usage of existing containers
» possible to build up tp 3 stories and to be build in narrow sites or slope lands
» placing containers in a checkerboard pattern and create a open living space in between
» excellent seismic performance
» can be used as a permanent apartment

See also:

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Housing for New Orleans	Sand-bag houses by MMA Architects 3	Pallet House by I-Beam

Graphic designer Milton Glaser has created this poster to raise money towards Architecture for Humanity’s efforts to rebuild the Tohoku region of Japan, following its devastation by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March.

Called Rise for Japan, the poster is printed on handmade Japanese paper using an old letterpress in New York and can be purchased at www.riseforjapan.org

More ways to help Japan »

Here’s a tiny bit of text from Glaser:

Rise for Japan x Milton Glaser

Rise for Japan has partnered with legendary designer Milton Glaser to produce this 16″ x 24″ limited edition poster.

Printed in Brooklyn, NY, on an old letterpress using handmade Japanese paper, 100% of profits from this collaboration will go toward Architecture for Humanity‘s rebuilding efforts in tsunami affected areas of Tohoku, Japan.

To learn more or purchase a poster visit www.riseforjapan.org

See also:

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Help Japan Poster by Wieden + Kennedy	“Please help Japan” – Tokujin Yoshioka	Heart for Japan by Delphine Perrot

London studios Anomaly and Unit9 are collating patterns donated by artists, which users can print out with instructions to make origami cranes in exchange for a donation to disaster relief in Japan.

Top: Zeitguised
Above: Matt Lyon

Called One Thousand Cranes for Japan, the project draws on Japanese legend that a person who folds 1000 origami cranes will be granted a wish.

Above: Laura Quick

Artists involved so far include Zeitguised, Tokyo Plastic and Matt Lyon, with new artists added each day.

Above: Hennie Haworth

Join in here:

www.onethousandcranesforjapan.com
www.facebook.com/onethousandcranesforjapan

Above: Actop

More about Japan »

Above: Todd Selby

The information that follows is from the designers:

As the aftermath of the tsunami continues to cause serious disruption throughout northern Japan, we need to bring aid and support to the area as quickly as possible. Although financial donations will be greatly appreciated, it is also important that the people of Japan to know that we are contributing in a way that transcends monetary worth.

Above: Tokyo Plastic

An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish. Today, the Japanese still respect this custom and use it to help loved ones recover from illness or injury.

Above: Tom Uglow

One Thousand Cranes for Japan takes this tradition and expands it across the globe in a unified display of goodwill. Anomaly London has together with Unit9 created a project where in exchange for a donation you can print a specially designed pattern to fold into an origami crane in support of Japan.

Many famous artists have donated patterns for the initiative. We launch with designs from animators Zeitguised, photographer Todd Selby, artist Paul Slater, creative collective Actop, illustrators Brian Grimwood, Hennie Haworth, Laura Quick, Matt Lyon and directors Tokyo Plastic.

We will add designs as they come in day by day: we are expecting submissions from Diane von Furstenberg, Brian Grimwood, Andy Gilmore, James Joyce, Mr Bingo and Jody Barton.

A donation to the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund allows you to download and print off one of these illustrations, complete with instructions on how to make your own origami crane.

We are hoping many thousands of people will make a crane and in doing so focus their wishes of hope and recovery for those in the grip of this tragedy.

See also:

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Help Japan Poster by Wieden + Kennedy	“Please help Japan” – Tokujin Yoshioka	Heart for Japan by Delphine Perrot