Hasta La Ideas

Japanese architects Akinari Tanaka, POI, Nawakenjimu and Lapin have completed this diamond-shaped house in Kokura, Japan, with a ledge in one corner for climbing up to the roof terrace.

The Kokura Tanaka House is split into quarters by two crossing walls in the centre, creating four equal rooms that each have access to outdoor terraces.

The small plot is surrounded by the perimeter walls of neighbouring residences, which are now painted in the same shade as the new house to make it feel less hemmed-in.

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Photography is by Kei Sugimoto.

More information is provided by the architects below:

Kokura Tanaka House

This is the project that the client returned to the birthplace after the retirement and rebuilt an old house. He requested sunny one-storied house with good ventilation.

But there was a problem that an erstwhile quiet green residential area was changed into densely built-up area, and moreover neighbour’s concrete block wall surrounded his flagpole shape site. And there was a sense of being oppressed.

So we tried the design “Shakuhei”(=Borrowed wall) to turn this bad condition to the advantage. Incorporating beautiful landscape is usual method at “Shakkei”, but this project “Shakuhei” is a trial to incorporating neighbour’s ordinary concrete block wall. Therefore, we dared to make the house with a concrete block wall.

Firstly, we cut this site into pieces on a cross with concrete block wall. Secondly, we put one roof over the top of the wall. As a result, in all rooms we obtained scenery that our wall and neighbour’s wall are seen at the same time.

In a word, it is felt that neighbours’ walls are own walls. And we feel this house compact but large, because each rooms have a garden.

Further, we got a sense of unity and a reflection effect by painting neighbour’s wall white with their consent. However, we want not only to borrow the wall from neighbours but also to build the relation of win-win. So that, we secured the neighbor’s sunny space with good breeze by making the flat roof terrace and painting it white.

The air inlets are familiar screen blocks in a Japanese town. And the air outlets are simple holes but manual regulation of air volume is possible.

Architects: Akinari Tanaka+POI+Nawakenjimu+Lapin
Location: Kokura,Japan
Project area: 67 sqm
Site area: 247 sqm
Project year: 2009-2010

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Belly House by Tomohiro Hata	New Kyoto Town House by ALPHAville	Nest by UID

Our fourth featured pavilion from Mexican pilgrimage route La Ruta del Peregrino is a precariously balanced viewing platform by Chilean architects Elemental.

The Crosses Lookout Point is at a higher altitude on the Jalisco mountains than any of the other new landmark shelters along the 117km-long route.

Positioned like a seesaw at its tipping point, the concrete pavilion provides those who step inside a framed view of the landscape.

See more stories about La Ruta del Peregrino on Dezeen »

Photography is by Iwan Baan.  More images of this project can be found on his website.

Here is some more information about the wider project:

Ruta del Peregrino
Jalisco, Mexico

Ruta del Peregrino is a religious phenomenon centred and moved by the adoration to the virgin of talpa.

La Ruta del Peregrino (Pilgrim’s Route) stretches out on a distance of 117 kilometers.

Approximately two million people participate each year in this religious phenomenon coming from different states of México to walk through the mountain range of Jalisco, starting in the town of Ameca, ascending to el Cerro del Obispo at an altitude of 2000 meters above sea level, crossing the peak of Espinazo del Diablo to descend to it’s final destination in the town of Talpa de Allende to meet with the Virgin of Talpa as an act of devotion, faith and gratitude.

This religious voyage has taken place since the 17th century, for the pilgrims the act of faith is carried to penitence, the conditions of the route are harsh. This sacrifice carried with austerity is an essential part of the promise or offering that become the ritual of purification.

This project aims to provide the historical route with better conditions for the pilgrims as well as to maximize the social and economical profit for this area by taking advantage of this massive event. Based on a systematic vision the project becomes a sustainable site with different layers of meaning.

As we focus on the whole, the master plan consists of an ecological corridor with infrastructure and iconic architectural pieces that add to the religious ritual and also aim to appeal to a broader audience and allow the Route to have a flow of visitor beyond the religious.

The focus is on the iconic narrative given to the Route with 7 pieces that strongly relate both to the extraordinary landscape and to the religious ritual, becoming the imaginary landmarks of a deeply rutted phenomenon.  Each landmark by a different designer, a group of individual dialogues with specific sites and intentions that add up, to weave a single story.

Credits and Data

Project title: Crosses Lookout Point
Location: Las Cruces
State: Built
Architects: Elemental
Team: Alejandro Aravena, Diego Torres, Victor Oddó, Juan Cerda, Gonzalo Artea, Cristian Martínez, Fernando García

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Sanctuary by Ai Weiwei	Sanctuary Circle by Dellekamp and Periférica	Lookout Point by HHF Architects

If you’ve spent any time in Washington DC, particularly in the section of DC where everyone visiting will spend the majority of their time, you’ve no doubt realized that the area immediately surrounding the White House isn’t especially inviting. Sure, crossing south from the White House to head over to the center of the National Mall you’ll pass some trees and some various other pieces of greenery, but it’s mostly just grass. Lots and lots of grass. Take that walk in the summer, without nearly a tree in sight and you’ll feel like you’re in a desert (one with lots of humidity and tourists). However, the National Capital Planning Commission is eager to try and remedy that issue, at least out to Constitution Ave and still leaving The Ellipse treeless, so of course not to block the President’s view of the Washington Monument. The organization has picked five finalists for the President’s Park South Design Competition. There’s Roger Marvel Architects, Hood Design Studio, and the firm you’ve likely come to expect whenever it comes to high-profile landscape design competitions, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. The five finalists’ plans will be on display at the White House Visitor Center until Monday, followed by a public meeting to address the plans at the NCPC’s headquarters on Tuesday. And as it appears that the government is itching to move forward with this, they’ll announce the winner on Thursday the 30th. For those who can’t make it to DC, you can weigh in on each plan through the competition’s site. Our money is on Van Valkenburgh for the win, considering lately he’s seemed like both a darling of the presidential set, the governmental set, and well, again, high-profile landscape architecture competitions in general.

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Curving metal forms frame the glass facade of this market hall in Barcelona by Spanish firm MiAS Architects.

Wrapping around a bomb-damaged nineteenth century structure, the suspended metal shapes give the Barceloneta Market a new profile.

Containing restaurants and shops, the market faces onto a large public square.

More stories about markets on Dezeen »

Photography is by Adrià Goula.

The following text is from the architects:

The Market in a Neighbourhood called l’Òstia

When I was a student at the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), Barceloneta was the subject of much conversation. Restaurants on the beach which later disappeared… narrow streets, cramped flats, the clothes hanging out on the balconies, the shops, the artisans’ workshops… and its people, who talked, and still talk, fast and loud.

The project meant a chance to go back to the neighbourhood in an interested manner; it was no longer a trip down there for fun, to discover its people, its bars, its smell… but rather a survey of the place with the object of identifying what would enable us to reveal its qualities and to describe it accurately for the purposes of a project.

An attempt, ultimately, to explain a reality, to offer a new and fuller meaning to an architectural project, beyond resolving a programme or commission.

As early as the competition stage we did a collage with some of César Manrique’s fantastic fish, drawings for children we hoped might embody and express the joy of these people: their liveliness, their energy, their enthusiasm in the face of frequent hardship.

In fact the Market has always been an element of social cohesion in the neighbourhood, a landmark, sometimes almost secret and visible only to its inhabitants.

This condition of density that the market has in relation to the city should be a condition of the project, so that the building and its immediate surroundings actually become a clear point of reference in this corner of the city of Barcelona.

It is surprising to see now the photos we made of the market during construction, when the pieces, the bones, of this huge animal were being carried through the streets to their final place. 
This animal is now a prisoner in a military-imposed town plan, this neighbourhood, with no chance of escape.

I think it’s nice to think of the memory of these very streets of each of these transported parts; each neighbour, witness alike to the construction, or at least some fragment of the market. 
And it is surprising even now, to recall that building process, which we shared with neighbours, with workers… the final construction done in parts, little pieces of a greater reality; the assembly of these pieces, these fragments, previously cut up in the factory, to facilitate transport, and their passage through the narrow streets to the space allocated for the market.

The market seeks to form part of the neighbourhood, its urban fabric, and is redirected toward the squares front and rear – formerly no square existed, and the bays that made up the market crossed.

The new metal figures create new market spaces, not touching the ground, but suspended from the old structure, not a in real manner, since the two structures, the old and new, never really overlap structurally, rather they do so in a false equilibrium.

The imprisoned, tamed building writhes within this space, a certain violence in its rebuilt form, acquiring a reality that lies between the memory of its former self and its new ambition. It uncurls, curls back up, and offers a succession of new spaces to discover.

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I think we have succeeded in making the market belong to the neighbourhood again naturally: from inside, the windows of neighbouring buildings overlay our enclosure, and vice versa. It is a market that can be understood as an extension of the city, of the neighbourhood, of its shops, of its bars, with a day-to-day continuity. And it can be crossed as one does a pedestrian crossing, hardly looking from side to side. Halls, restaurants, shops, spaces of and for the neighbourhood, ultimately… and a sense of necessarily belonging to a place, of identifying with it, and participating in its energy.

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I would like the building to be, beyond its market, a part of the neighbourhood’s impudence, to match the gutsy character of this neighbourhood ― so special, so vital ― of Barcelona that they call, for some reason, l’Òstia.

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Abu Dhabi Central Market by Foster + Partners	Barceló Temporary Market by Nieto Sobejano	Besiktas Fish Market by GAD

This Tokyo house by Japanese architects Key Operation has been designed around the movements of the client’s pet cat, writes Yuki Sumner.

Stepping-stone shelves allow a cat to move between rooms in The Cat House through high level openings, without using the landing and stairs.

With integrated book shelves, the landing doubles up as a library and study.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

More Japanese houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Key Operation, apart from where otherwise stated.

The following is from the architects:

Neko no Ie (The Cat House)

A century ago, the famous Japanese novelist Sosuke Natsume wrote a novel called “I Am a Cat (Wagahai Wa Neko De Aru).” It is written from the point of view of a cat.

The cat, who remains nameless during the novel’s first chapter, lives in a house with a teacher and his family. He is angry that he is not regarded as an equal member of the family in this household. “I will never catch mice,” the cat announces haughtily, not wishing to make himself useful.

What if, however, there was a house, which has been designed specifically with a cat in mind? What would it look like? The Japanese architect Akira Koyama of Key Operation Inc. has recently designed a house for a young family, which included a pet cat, in the densely populated Taishido district, west of Tokyo. Undoubtedly, this house would have made Natsume’s cat green with envy.

Neko no Ie (The Cat House) stands on a typically compact, rectilinear site (7 meters wide, 12 meters deep) along a narrow residential street, just big enough for a single car to pass through.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

Although the plot is small, the client (including the cat) did not specify the need for an outdoor garden space, and so the architect decided to set the house back by 3 meters from the street, thereby creating a void, synonymous in Japan with a sense of luxury.

The upper section of the house is further set back from the ground level, generating a balcony. It is generally perceived that the Japanese architects have a greater freedom of expression than the Western counterparts but we forget that there are a number of restrictions that the Japanese architects face when designing buildings in Japan, and this is no exception.

There is a law, for example, restricting the owning of a car to those who can ensure its parking space. Neko no Ie, like many houses on the street, accommodates a garage within the house.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

The architect faced yet another restriction imposed in this area. It forbade the use of bright colours on exterior facades so that the ‘scenery’ of the area is conserved. Neko no Ie’s grey stucco façade complies with this regulation.

Undeterred, however, Koyama subtly managed to subvert both of these restrictions by painting the inside of the garage bright pink, therefore making a feature out of what is usually a dark and dingy space and injecting much-needed playfulness in this otherwise boring grey neighbourhood.

The house’s asymmetrical roofline maximizes both its playfulness as well as its volume. The architect has created within a complex interior space consisting of rooms of varying sizes, which are stack on top of each other over three floors.

One would not be able to observe such a structure from outside of the house, but it reflects the layout of the area, which has a mixture of detached houses, both large and small.

The biggest room in the house is the dining/living room, stretched horizontally to fit the whole width of the house. By also extending the room vertically, the architect has opened up this room to the rest of the house.

What look like shelves jutting out of one wall of this room are actually steppingstones for the pet cat to enter into the adjacent rooms through the openings placed higher up on the wall.

This arrangement leaves the ample staircase and landings, which double up as a library, undisturbed from the burst of activities of the feline member of the family, while the rest of the family uses them as a place of quietude.

Moreover, just as the garage became the visual focal point for the exterior of the house, the staircase, painted also brightly pink, signals a gathering of all the separate interior sections of Neko no Ie.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

By varying the sizes of the rooms and painting them in different colours, the architect has emphasized their uniqueness and separateness.

Above photograph is by Keizo Shibasaki.

At the same time, he has managed to link the rooms through small and large openings so that none of the rooms is completely isolated. Autonomy is respected but isolation is discouraged.

For instance, a large opening in the wall of the dining/living room, which looks into the kitchen, allows the person who is cooking to connect with the person who is being served.

In the meantime, the cat can slip into the study located above the kitchen through yet another, this time smaller, opening.

The rooms’ co-dependence is thus implicitly emphasized.

Neko no Ie is a symbolic celebration of the emergence of the modern Japanese family, more democratic than the traditional one preceding it, allowing each member to flourish independently while nurturing a supportive environment.

Ironically, a pet cat was an integral part of it.

Text by Yuki Sumner, 2011

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Yachiyo by Atelier Tekuto	House by Yoshio Oono Architect & Associates	House in Fukuyama by Suppose Design Office