White ceramic tiles create a brickwork pattern across the walls and roof of this Paris boutique designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates for Chinese lifestyle brand Shang Xia (+ slideshow).
Japanese firm Kengo Kuma and Associates previously designed the Beijing and Shanghai stores for Shang Xia. For the brand’s first retail space in Europe, the architects designed an interior covered in over 10,000 tiles that extends to a layered ceiling installation.
The studio chose rectangular tiles with a glossy surface to reflect light through the store, describing the material as having an edge “thin enough to pass through light”.
“We used the same material for tiles to hang from the ceiling and cover the space,” explained the studio. “Taking advantage of this glazed white surface that softly mirrors its environments, we set up a place like a cloud brimming with light.”
The tiles also form a backdrop for the shopfront display windows, creating a screen that alternates between solid and void.
Located on a corner plot close to Boulevard Saint-Germain, the oval-shaped boutique showcases a range of furniture, homeware, accessories and clothing.
A tiled partition divides the store and is punctured by rectangular recesses, creating display spaces for jewellery. Tabletops and boxy stools are positioned in front, where customers can take a seat while trying on jewellery.
Glass-topped storage cases present a range of accessories, while more recessed shelving on the perimeter walls are filled with homeware items.
Scarves and shawls are tied to silver railings near the entrance and racks of clothing are set into the outer tiled walls, along with a selection of furniture. Polished wooden floors feature throughout.
The design has a similar aesthetic to Shang Xia’s two stores in China. While the Beijing store contains a lattice of extruded aluminium sections, the Shanghai boutique features a faceted white interior.
A la Royal Academy of Arts de Londres, l’exposition en cours Sensing Spaces invite à ressentir les espaces, et permet aux spectateurs de venir s’approprier et interagir avec les œuvres d’Eduardo Souto de Moura, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Kengo Kuma, Li Xiaodong, Diébédo Francis Kéré et l’agence irlandaise Grafton Architects.
An intricate three-dimensional lattice of narrow timber slats forms a cloud-like mass around the exterior of this pineapple cake shop in Tokyo by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma (+ slideshow).
Kengo Kuma and Associates was asked by cake brand SunnyHills to come up with a shop design that mirrors the careful preparation of the company’s trademark pineapple cakes, so the architects developed a volume modelled on a well-crafted bamboo basket.
Over 5000 metres of wooden strips were used to construct the precise 3D grid that wraps around around the outer walls and ceiling of the three-storey building. Some pieces were cut shorter than others, revealing multiple layers and reducing the overall linearity.
“Our aim was to create a forest in the busy city centre,” said Kengo Kuma. “We studied how lighting states would change in a day in the woods, and came up with a shape like a basket.”
The narrow slats are arranged at angles of 30 and 60 degrees, creating hundreds of diamond-shaped hollows, and were assembled by local Japanese craftsman.
“I consider that wood joints without glues or nails are the essence of Japanese architecture,” added Kuma. “What is characteristic about SunnyHills is the angle of the lattice; unlike the conventional 90 degrees, we tried 30 degrees and 60 degrees to combine the pieces.
“By designing with these varied angles, we were able to achieve a shape and a frame that evokes a forest,” he added.
An opening at one corner leads visitor into the shop, which occupies the two lower floors of the building. An assortment of differently sized staircase treads form a route between the two floors and are flanked by sprouting foliage.
Cork tiles provide flooring on the first floor, where the architects have also added a kitchen. The cork surface continues up to the level above, which houses a meeting room and staff office.
Here’s a project description from Kengo Kuma and Associates:
SunnyHills at Minami-Aoyama
This shop, specialised in selling pineapple cake (popular sweet in Taiwan), is in the shape of a bamboo basket. It is built on a joint system called “Jiigoku-Gumi”, traditional method used in Japanese wooden architecture (often observed in Shoji: vertical and cross pieces in the same width are entwined in each other to form a muntin grid). Normally the two pieces intersect in two dimensions, but here they are combined in 30 degrees in 3 dimensions (or in cubic), which came into a structure like a cloud. With this idea, the section size of each wood piece was reduced to as thin as 60mm×60mm.
As the building is located in middle of the residential area in Aoyama, we wanted to give some soft and subtle atmosphere to it, which is completely different from a concrete box. We expect that the street and the architecture could be in good chemistry.
Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has layered wooden boards to create striations inside this workspace and cafe for an online restaurant guide based in Osaka (+ slideshow).
Kengo Kuma designed the interiors of two spaces for Gurunavi: one that’s used as a physical base and information centre for the Japanese restaurant guide and another that serves as a cafe.
Both follow the same design language, with surfaces created using layers of plywood to create a landscape that functions as furniture.
“We piled up pieces of wooden panels to build the interior like topography,” said Kuma. “Various kinds of food-related items are laid out on this wooden ground.”
At the Shun*Shoku Lounge cafe, the wooden boards are stacked from floor to ceiling in one corner and create a counter in the centre plus seating around the sides.
Similarly in the workspace, the strata wrap around the edges of the room and extend out at various heights to form shelving, desks and seating.
Shun*Shoku Lounge
The two spaces are both enclosed by glass walls on three sides and a solid wall at the back. They are separated by a tunnel that leads to further retail units at Osaka’s main railway station.
Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has bent bamboo into walkways and seating areas at this year’s Gwangju Design Biennale in South Korea, which opens today.
Kengo Kuma spilt the bamboo into three-centimetre-wide strips to make it easy to bend, so visitors to the Gwangju Design Biennale can walk over or recline on the springy surfaces.
Bamboo is a common material in both Japanese and Korean architecture and Kuma used it in this installation for its flexibility and tactility.
“The objective of my exhibit at the Biennale is to reconnect the human body with architecture,” said Kuma.
On each section the ends of the bamboo strips are attached along two edges of a fixed base, bowing up against each other where the two sides meet in the middle.
This causes one side to curl back on itself and the other to flow over the top, making a wave shape.
The curves create seating areas that can be leant up against or laid down on.
At the biennale the waves outside form a twenty-metre-long passage between two exhibition halls, where loose strands along the top quiver in the wind.
The direction of the waves is alternated so one side is always open but the walkway is constantly covered.
The same design continues inside one of the galleries, where staggered sections create smaller pockets of seating space.
In the dark exhibition space elements are lit from below, illuminating the splaying strands.
Open until 3 November, the Gwangju Design Biennale also features the travelling Designed To Win exhibition of sport equipment first shown last year at London’s Design Museum during the Olympic Games.
The FRAC (Fond Regional D’art Contemporain) Marseille was designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates as a local art centre for the Provence Alpes Cotes d’Azur (PACA) region of France and it joins buildings by Boeri Studio and Rudy Ricciotti in the city’s harbour-side district.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
Hundreds of opaque glass rectangles create a chequerboard of solid and void across the glazed exterior of the six-storey-high building and are arranged at opposing angles to create a variation between light and shadow.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
“By this treatment, the building is given openness and transparency that are hard to gain from a conventional glass box,” said the architects.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
This uniform facade is punctured in just two places. The first opening is for a street-level window, while the second is an upper-level terrace that can be used for exhibitions, events or meetings.
“What we wanted was not a closed gallery but an elevated street that could work as an exhibition space and a workshop,” added the architects. “In this way inside and outside can be effectively linked, and this is what FRAC has aimed for since its inception.”
Photograph by Nicolas Waltefaugle
The building occupies a triangular site alongside Rue Vincent Leblanc. The larger southern section of the building accommodates the exhibition galleries, a research centre and offices, while the taller northern end contains an auditorium and children’s workshop.
The project description below is from Kengo Kuma and Associates:
Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain Marseille, France 2007-2013
The project of the contemporary art centre (FRAC) for the region Provence Alpes Cotes d’Azur (PACA) is the 3D version of the “museum without walls” invented by André Malraux, famous French writer and politician. It is a museum without a museum, a living and moving place, where the art pieces are in a constant movement and join the logic of diffusion and interaction with the visitors.
Axonometric diagram
KKAA thought the FRAC as a signal in the city, which allows a better visibility to contemporary art.
Site plan
The building stands up as a landmark which identity is clearly asserted.
It is composed with two recognisable parts: » The main body along the street Vincent Leblanc contains the exhibition spaces and documentation centre » A small tower with auditorium and children’s workshop, offers an upper terrace on the main boulevard.
These two clearly identified entities are connected between them by a set of footbridges and are unified by the envelope made by a glass skin, composed with panels with changing opacity.
The building explores the theme of the windows and openings on different scales. KKAA wishes to create a particular space of creation and life, which action and effect is bounded to the entire city, as well as the surrounding district and neighbourhood (cafe-terrace…).
News: Kengo Kuma’s latest proposals for a new outpost of the V&A museum in Dundee, Scotland, have been granted planning permission, following a redesign to reduce costs (+ slideshow).
Planned for construction in Dundee’s Craig Harbour, Kengo Kuma’s competition-winning design for the V&A at Dundee first gained approval in autumn 2012, but spiralling costs forced the architect to redesign the structure so that only its prow projects over the edge of the water, rather than the whole building as originally intended.
The £45 million building will be constructed on the site of a former leisure centre and will feature an angular body with thick horizontal striations, creating exhibition spaces that are naturally lit and ventilated. It is set to become the leading centre for design in Scotland.
Philip Long, director of V&A at Dundee, commented: “Kengo Kuma’s fabulous design will give Dundee and Scotland a wonderful space to enjoy outstanding international exhibitions, and to learn about and get involved with Scotland’s remarkable history of design creativity. I believe it will attract visitors from across the world.”
Detailing the timeframe for construction, he said: “The projected date for the main fabric of the building to be in place is the end of 2015. Its completion, the interior fit-out and installation of the first exhibitions and displays will follow throughout 2016.”
Volcanic rubble is scattered across the curved rooftops of these villas by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma on Jeju Island, South Korea (+ slideshow).
The “art villas” form Block D of the Lotte Jeju Resort, a development of houses designed by different architects, including Dominique Perrault, Yi Jongho and Seung H-Sang.
Kengo Kuma used locally sourced volcanic rocks for the exterior of his buildings, as a reference to over 300 volcanoes and lava cones, called oreums, that are scattered across the island.
“When I visited Jeju Island for the first time, I was so much inspired by this dark, porous volcanic rock and wanted to translate its soft and round touch into architecture,” says Kuma. “As the result, the entire house emerged as a round black stone.”
A neat lattice of timber creates the arching profiles of the rooftops. The volcanic rubble is spread thinly over the surfaces, stretching down to the ground at intervals and receding to make way for rectangular skylights over various rooms.
Kuma explains: “Our intention was [for] the light to come through the black pebbles. Light highlights the texture of the stone, and the ambiguous roof edge can connect the roof with the ground.”
The villas are available to rent or buy and are available in two sizes – 210 and 245 square metres.
When I visited Jeju Island for the first time, I was so much inspired by this dark, porous volcanic rock and wanted to translate its soft and round touch into architecture. As the result, the entire house emerged as a round black stone. From distance, the house appears like a single pebble and when you are close, you notice that many parts of the house are of the black stone.
The stone eaves should be the principal detail for this house. Our intention was the light to come through the black pebbles. Light highlights the texture of the stone, and the ambiguous roof edge can connect the roof with the ground. The detail, placing the black stone on a steel mesh, enabled us to realise such vague and subtle edge.
Japanese firm Kengo Kuma and Associates has completed an art and culture centre with a chequered timber facade on the banks of the Doubs river in Besançon, France (+ slideshow).
Entitled Cité des Arts, the centre comprises the Besançon Art Centre, which includes a gallery for regional collections and an art college, and the Cité de la Musique, a music school with its own auditorium.
Kengo Kuma and Associates won a competition to design the centre with plans for a timber-clad complex united beneath a single roof. This roof bridges the gap between a pair of three-storey buildings, creating a sheltered terrace in the space between.
“We did not want to propose a simple box,” say the architects. “By covering the gorgeous riverside with one generous roof, we aimed to give a unity to a site characterised by heterogeneous existing elements, and to create a special space under the roof, a ‘shade of trees’ space where the wind from the river could blow and pass through.”
Steel and glass panels are interspersed between the chequerboard of timber that blankets the exterior, creating different transparencies to various spaces inside the two buildings. Reception spaces are filled with natural light, while classrooms and exhibition galleries are made more opaque.
“A beautiful shade may pass through this mosaic and enfold the people on the riverside,” say the architects.
The music school wraps around a small courtyard garden filled with mossy plants and low trees, while the art centre takes in a converted 1930s warehouse for use as an extra gallery.
Solar panels and sedum roof panels help to improve the sustainability of the centre. The structure is also elevated above ground level to decrease the risks of flooding.
Photography is by Stephan Girard, apart from where otherwise indicated.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Cité des Arts
The 7th July of 2008, the city of Besancon has been recognised as UNESCO world heritage for his outstanding fortification system erected by Vauban during the XVII century. The site of the future art and culture centre reflects the historical richness of the city: located in-between the bastions called Rivotte and Bregille, remarkable vestige of a prestigious history, the existing building in bricks attest of the industrial river traffic and activity of the region. Besancon is well known for being precursory in the green development in France. The site is inscribes in a generous natural environment in-between hill planted of forest, over hanged by the Citadelle and close to the riverside of the Doubs.
Concept
This project is the result of the union between history and architecture, water and light, city and nature.
We wish that the Besancon Art and Culture Centre strikes a chord with the environment by the fusion of the different scale of reading, from the details to the entire project, by blurring the limit between interior and exterior, to create a building able to enter in resonance with its environment: the hills, the river and the city of Besancon.
The roof creates the link between the building and its environment and makes the project blatant. Semi-transparent, the roof symbolises the fusion between built and not-built and act as camouflage when people discover it from the Citadelle which is height overlooking. It is an invitation to the citizen to gather below his protection. It symbolised the encounter between the city and the nature, the citizen and the riverbank, the public and the culture.
The site brings with itself both its own history and the history of the city. The riverbank always has been either a protection or a barrier. The project is a continuity of this history, its longitudinal geometry is following the orientation given by Vauban, the warehouse, old storage of wood, is kept and participate in the richness of the building. The Besancon Art and Culture Centre perpetuate the notion of protection, but can be read as well as a monumental gate between the city and the river, outstanding object and symbol of the unification of the city and his river.
It is a landmark, recognisable by a sober design and the quality of his materiality. We wish to reinforce the genius loci of the site through a strong and clearly identifiable building, but still respecting the relationship with the existing bastion, the river and the city.
Organisation Principle
Unified below the large roof, the two functions are identifiable by subtle differences in the patterns of the façade composed by wood panels and steel panels. The pattern dimensions are for the FRAC: 5000 X 2500 Horizontal while for the CRR 1625 X half floor height vertically.
The FRAC is partially located in the old brick warehouse building. After taking out two of the existing slabs, the void created is containing the main exhibition room. The large lobby of the FRAC is as much as possible transparent, open to both “art passage” and city side. The natural top light is diffused thanks to the random positioned glass panels of the roof, in order to achieve to communicate the feeling of being below a canopy of tree, where the light gently come through leaves down to the ground. The CRR is more an introverted space, except for his lobby which is 14 m height and largely transparent. Both lobby of FRAC and CRR are connected by the roof, creating a semi-outdoor space, the “art passage”, which is flooded of natural light through the semi-transparent roof. This passage, a large void, is structuring the overall buildings: it acts simultaneously as a gate and a shelter; it emphasises the particularity of this project witch gathering two different functions.
The roof
The roof is the emblematic and unifying element of the project. Composed in a random way with different element such as glass, solar panel, vegetation and metal panels with different color finish, the natural light vibrates on its surface, depending of the absorption and reflection of the different elements composing it. It creates a pixelised layer where the apparent aleatory position of the “pixels” define a unique image, abstract and confounded with the environment hue. The transparency is partially defined by the necessity of the program below: opaque on top of the rooms such as classroom, administration, or exhibition room. It gets more transparent when it is on top of the lobby or when it is covering the outdoor spaces.
Suspended by a wood framework, this fifth façade made of variation of transparency and opacity represent a unique and innovative design, a thin pixelised layer floating on top of the Doubs river and becoming at night a landmark reinforcing the entrance of the city. The only element emerging from the roof is the old warehouse converted in exhibition gallery, reminding the industrial period of the site.
The landscape design takes part in the pedestrian path along the river: it extend and connect the existing promenade. The main constrain of the site is the flood risk. We have reinforced the embankment and built on top of that dike. This is the reason why the building is installed on top of a pedestal. This pedestal can be physically experimented walking below the “art passage” semi-outdoor space, overhanging the street and connected to the river by a large stair.
The CRR is organised around a garden, called “harmony garden”, a wet garden combining moss and low trees. In continuity with the “art passage”, along the FRAC, a water pond planted with filtering rush is creating the soft transition between the city and the building. Partially covered by the semi-transparent roof, the shadow and light variations interweaves with the reflections on the reflection pond.
Wood, glass, or metal meshes are combined with subtleties in order to generate a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere. The wood frameworks supporting the roofing appear in the lobbies, terraces and in the last floors, which intensify the presence of the roof. The views to the exterior are precisely framed either to the water pond, the river, the double or triple height spaces manage to offer different space experiences.
This place which always has been perceived as a physical barrier for the citizens (either fortification or industrial area) we propose to generate an open and welcoming cultural centre, a gate and a roof between the river and the city, in harmony with the environment.
Project Credits:
Architects: Kengo Kuma, Paris and Tokyo Project team: Sarah Markert, Elise Fauquembergue, Jun Shibata, Yuki Ikeguchi
Architect associate: Archidev, Cachan, France Structure and MEP engineer: Egis, Strasbourg, France Landscaper: L’Anton, Arcueil, France Acoustic engineer: Lamoureux, Paris, France Scenographer: Changement à Vu, Paris, France Quantity surveyor: Cabinet Cholley, Besançon, France Sustainable engineer: Alto, Lyon, France Site Area: 20 603 sqm Built area: 11 389 sqm Client: Communauté d’agglomération, Franche-Comté, Ville de Besançon, Budget: 26 900 000 Euros
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