Hasta La Ideas

Chunky wooden columns and beams support the sloping timber ceiling of this small pharmacy by Japanese studio Ninkipen! in the city of Ogaki (+ slideshow).

Osaka architects Ninkipen! designed the pharmacy for a plot in front of a hospital and chose to let the building’s facade signal its presence to patients, rather than employing typical neon signs.

“We considered how the architecture itself could become a symbol in the town, but unlike other pharmacies filling the streets with big, showy graphic signage,” explained the architects.

The underside of the building’s long pitched roof is clad in timber to create an expansive, warm surface that can be seen through the full-height windows and is intended to welcome visitors entering the pharmacy from the street.

The roof’s low eaves correspond to those of neighbouring buildings, while grass planted on top will eventually cover the entire surface.

A skylight in the middle of the ceiling brings additional daylight into the reception area, as well as to a raised walkway beneath the roof on the upper storey.

The exposed wooden trusses supporting the roof contrast with black metal bracing rods and the black electrical cords from which bare pendant bulbs are suspended.

The dispensing desk is also clad in timber to maintain a consistency of materials throughout the interior.

Photography is by Hiroki Kawata.

Here’s a short project description from Ninkipen!:

O Dispensing Pharmacy

This is a new construction for a pharmacy in front of a general hospital.We considered how the architecture itself could become a symbol in the town, but unlike other pharmacies filling the streets with big, showy graphic signage.

A single sloping roof you can see from the street is made of timber and it will be completely covered with grass in a few years. We lowered the edge of the eaves like the surrounding eaves and made the ceiling continue from there to the second floor with a truss with steel diagonal rods. You can look around to the sky on the other side when you enter the pharmacy.

We think the warm timber ceiling on the back of the roof will gently greet the people coming in for medicine. We are happy if citizens remember this as ‘the Wood Roofed Pharmacy’ and for them this becomes a virgin landscape of pharmacy.

Architect: Yasuo Imazu / ninkipen!
Stractual engineer: Yosiki Mondo
Use: dispensing pharmacy
Location: Ogaki city, Japan

Site area: 177.00m2
Building area: 106.50m2
Total floor area: 172.14m2

The post Ninkipen! exposes wooden columns
and trusses inside O Pharmacy appeared first on Dezeen.

Garments hang from a wall-mounted wooden grid inside this Osaka fashion boutique that Japanese studio Ninkipen! has recently completed (+ slideshow).

The store for Japanese fashion brand Ring has an L-shaped plan and the wooden structure wraps the prominent inside corner to create a flexible display hanger.

“We tried to create uniqueness in this shop by maximizing the potential of the given space,” said Ninkipen! founder Imazu Yasuo.

Cement boards line the two walls behind this grid, contrasting with the white-painted surfaces of the remaining walls.

Fluorescent lighting tubes hang from the ceiling on wires to illuminate the space from above. “Utilising the high ceilings, they light the whole space uniformly,” explained Yasuo.

Additional garments are presented on glass tabletops and within recesses in the walls.

Ring Osaka is located in the Herbis Plaza shopping centre.

Ninkipen! have previously worked on various shop fit-outs, including a clothing shop with fake doors and a bakery where bread is displayed on a wooden sleeper. See more stories about design by Ninkipen! »

Above: floor plan

Photography is by Hiroko Kawata.

The post Ring Osaka
by Ninkipen! appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese studio Ninkipen! have completed a family house in Nara, Japan, comprising staggered rectangular volumes.

A skylight pierces both floors of the residence to draw light down into the kitchen.

The open-plan interior is finished in white, with wooden flooring and detailing.

There are no doors inside the house, instead rooms flow into one another through interconnected doorways.

The living spaces and one bedroom are located on the ground floor with a further two rooms on the next floor, each adjoining a roof terrace.

Photographs are by Hiroki Kawata.

More Japanese houses on Dezeen »
More residential architecture on Dezeen »

Here’s some more information from the architects:

This is a small residence for a couple with one child, situated in Nara, Japan.

The neighborhood is determined by a large number of individual houses spread over a gentle slope facing south.

During the design process, the lot right beside was yet empty and it was unclear what was going to be built.

Therefore, the design had to be autonomous, but at the same time it should be able to react positively on whatever was going to be built next door.

The volume of the house is constituted of an uneven volume, split and shifted both in ground plan and elevation into sub-volumes that are visually separated, but connected through continuous lighting and ventilation.

The interior space is characterized by interconnected cubes with no doors, privacy is ensured by deliberate nooks and narrowings between the rooms.

Even though the house is with 80.84 m2 relatively small, the continuous spaces that always let anticipate the following room, convey a sense of larger extent.

Project name
80.84
Architect
YASUO IMAZU/ninkipen! Architect office

Use: house
Location: Nara, Japan

Process

Design　2008.2-2008.7
Construction　2008.8-2009.3

Scale
Site area 134.57m2
Building area 65.24m2
Total floor area 80.84m2

See also:

.

House of Resonance by FORM/Kouichi Kimura	Mole by Ninkipen!	Rroomm by Ninkipen!