Hasta La Ideas

Japanese architect Tsubasa Iwahashi has added hanging plants and a shed-like meeting room to an office in Osaka, which workers can take a peek at through boxy windows (+ slideshow).

Tsubasa Iwahashi Architects renovated the corridor of 11 office units on one floor of a building in Osaka’s Nishi-ku district. Entitled Hut on the Corridor, the garden-inspired project creates a common area where employees can take time out from their work.

The main intervention is a wooden hut in the centre of the space, which can be used as a meeting area or a quiet chill-out zone. This structure has only three walls, so people step inside by walking around to its rear.

The hut doesn’t have any windows, but a large skylight helps to bring in light. There’s also a small peephole in one corner that reveals the feet of anyone walking by.

“Going up you take off your shoes, so in a manner different from the communication that takes place in each private room, the hut of wood creates new value, connections and ideas,” said Iwahashi.

New domestic-style windows were added between the corridors and the office units. Each one features a boxy wooden frame, where plants and other items can be displayed.

The garden aesthetic is emphasised by hanging baskets suspended from the ceiling. The architects also made a small perforation in one wall to suggest a mouse hole.

Signage is kept to a minimum. A simple floor plan is marked onto the walls of the hut to provide directions, while male and female toilets are symbolised by a pair of cartoon faces.

Photography is by Takumi Ota.

Here’s a project description from Tsubasa Iwahashi:

A Hut on the Corridor

Like the street and square of the city, was thought people going back and forth, to try to place that meets nearby the place, is the beginning of our image.

We have renovated the common area of one floor of the rental office building built in ’40s in the city, a small company lined. Up the stairs, step into the legs to the floor, a small hut will appear in front of you.

We have expanded the part of the narrow existing corridor, and we have created a hut that get together. From a mere corridor, the hut changes the state and landscapes the place.

Going up you take off your shoes, so in a manner different from the communication that takes place in each private room, the hut of wood located in the centre of the floor creates new value, connections and ideas.

The corridor was regarded as an external space, lighting and planting the hut is located, the image of the external light, through a window facing there, and then insert the sunshine in each private room. Coupled with people going back and forth, and green hut glimpse through the window of a private room, reminiscent of the street landscape of the city.

For adjacent building is close, it is intended that in the private room you can not feel the sunlight directly, to provide a new external environment.

I hope that while they use, environment as grow up, with the passage of time, depending on the season, the landscape as a hut go deeper.

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outside in with hanging baskets and a shed appeared first on Dezeen.

Illuminated glass droplets full of bubbles appear to fall from the ceiling in this installation by Japanese studio Torafu Architects (+ slideshow).

The Water Balloon installation at the Konica Minolta Plaza Gallery in Tokyo was created by Torafu Architects for the Eco & Art Award 2014 exhibition.

The designers worked with a glass artist to form a series hand-blown bulbs from recycled material.

Each fluorescent lamp is a different shape and patterned with bubbles created during the blowing process.

“The bubbles inside each unique shape help produce a distinctive ethereal light,” said the designers.

Suspended from wires at various heights around the small room, the 36 “water balloons” pulsate with light in the dark space.

“We strived to create a space where [visitors] can catch a glimmer of a new natural environment,” the designers added.

Photography is by Masaki Ogawa.

The post Torafu Architects suspend bubbly balloons
of light for Tokyo installation appeared first on Dezeen.

Charred cedar clads the walls of this house in Aichi, Japan, by architecture studio MDS, while exposed wooden beams create a rack-like effect on the underside of the diagonally slanted roof.

Like many houses owned by young families in Japan, Okazaki House was built on the same site as the residence of the client’s parents.

Tokyo-based studio MDS used a traditional charring technique known as Yakisugi to blacken the cedar planks used for the building’s exterior, helping to protect the building from decay.

The site naturally slopes down from one side to the other, so the architects created a single-storey dwelling containing a series of tiered levels.

An entrance leads into the house at the uppermost level, where the living room is located. The floor then steps down to create a dining room in the middle and a kitchen at the lowest level.

“This enables people to maintain the same level of eyesight, and retains an exquisite sense of distance,” said the architects, explaining how they wanted to maintain an open-plan atmosphere.

Pendant lamps hang down from between the ceiling beams to illuminate worktops and seating areas, while a piece of built-in furniture provides shelving and a desk.

A small courtyard with a tree at its centre cuts into the volume of the building, separating living spaces from the master bedroom.

A second bedroom and bathroom are tucked away on one side and residents have to step down again to access them.

Polished oak floorboards run throughout the house, while latticed wooden screens can be used to partition spaces when required.

Photography is by Forward Stroke Inc.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Okazaki House

The generation gap has become a problem in Japan in recent years. There are an increasing number of two-family homes, as well as houses built on the lots of parents’ houses. This house is one of the latter. Although the residents are parents and child, solicitude should be expressed with this not-so-large site.

This house is a one-storey building with a shed roof, which lowers the roof height on the side of the parents’ house, resulting in wide views maintained with open sky from the parents’ house.

For the interior space, the shape of the large shed roof is directly exposed, and two angled walls (canted walls) are placed in this open-space. This simple design creates various interior spaces in both plan and cross-section. The floor levels of the rooms are decided based on the ground height around the building, and are planned to utilise the height differences.

The site is sloped from north to south, and the west side, where the parents’ house stands, is lower. The main bedroom is located at the highest part of the site, the north-east side; across from a central courtyard, the level gradually slopes towards the south, from the living room, to the dining room and to the kitchen. This enables people to maintain the same level of eyesight, and retains an exquisite sense of distance.

For the framework of the roof, standard cedar lumber of 120x120mm, which is commonly sold on the market, is used. Instead of using custom sizes or laminated wood, the lumber is alternately laid over the beams within the maximum standard length of 6m, and is crisscrossed at the upper part of the canted walls that roughly divide the interior. This creates an impressive ceiling surface as well as functioning as the roof framework.

Company name: MDS Co.Ltd
Architecture: Kiyotoshi Mori & Natsuko Kawamura / MDS
Location: Okazaki-City, Aichi
Principal Use: residence

Structure: wood
Site Area: 213.74 sqm
Total Floor Area: 98.17 sqm /1F
Exterior finish: yakisugi / cedar forms exposed concrete
Roof: galvanised colour steel sheet standing-seam roofing
Floor: oak flooring
Wall: plasterer
Ceiling: oregon pine of 120 x 120 mm

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Okazaki House by MDS appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese studio NI&Co. Architects has built a small sound-proofed cabin in Nagoya where its owners can retreat to play the piano.

Nestled amongst a number of taller buildings in a residential area of the city, Piano House was designed by NI&Co. Architects as a simple structure with a purple brickwork exterior and a timber-lined interior.

An asymmetric roof angles up into a point above the entrance, creating enough height for a sheltered door with a window above.

This leads through to a corridor, created by a partition wall that gradually angles further away from the ceiling. This wall folds halfway along, leading through to a space accommodating both a grand piano and an upright piano.

“The spiral shape wall is extended to the inside, so you can feel the continuity of internal and external space,” said architect and studio co-founder Nina Funahashi.

The partition is punctured by a large rectangular opening that suggests an informal spectator spot.

As well as basic plywood panels, the interior walls feature several patches of pegboard that help to improve the internal acoustics of the space.

“We designed an acoustic layer and sound insulation layer by combining the general-purpose materials, so the soundproof chamber can have acoustic and echo function with a low budget,” said the architect.

A cluster of globe-shaped pendant lamps hang from the ceiling, diffusing light through translucent surfaces.

Photography is by Hiroshi Tanigawa.

Here’s a short description from NI&Co. Architects:

Piano House K.448

This house with a spiral shape plan is for playing the piano. The site is 7m width and 15m depth, and surrounding area is a quiet residential quarter. The blanks are created by rotating the house 10 degrees against the site, and it brought the soundproof effect as a buffer zone for surrounding area.

The spiral shape wall is extended to the inside, so you can feel the continuity of internal and external space by the wall. We designed an acoustic layer and sound insulation layer by combining the general-purpose materials, so the soundproof chamber can have acoustic and echo function with a low budget.

A sound wave can reach ears through air encircled with the spiral shape wall. The spiral shape wall extending to the inside is customisable for adjusting convey of piano’s sound, so the wall can bring about changes in the sound environment. It becomes the space for ‘sonata for two pianos’.

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a secluded spot for making music appeared first on Dezeen.

by Natasha Tauber While haute couture has, in recent years, moved toward displaying the textural qualities of embellishment through abstraction, Maison des Perles brooches, pins and necklaces are largely representational….

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