Avec sa série « Squares », l’artiste Adam Magyar nous invite à découvrir de jolis photomontages, créant des photos aériennes factices de places remplis de passants. Des créations faisant passer les êtres humains comme des éléments perdus circulant dans de grands espaces vides. A découvrir dans la suite en images.
News: Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki has gathered a throng of designers including Toyo Ito, Sou Fujimoto, Kengo Kuma and Riken Yamamoto to oppose the design of Zaha Hadid’s 2020 Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.
Maki, who was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1993, has organised a symposium where Japanese architects will protest against the scale of the proposed 80,000-seat stadium, which is set to become the main sporting venue for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games.
Sou Fujimoto told the Architects’ Journal (£) that the campaign was set up because Zaha Hadid‘s building will be “too big” in relation to its surroundings, which include Kenzo Tange’s iconic 1964 Olympic stadium.
“I hope that this protest is successful in shrinking the design to fit the context,” he told the magazine. “I’m not fighting Zaha. The competition for the stadium was very rigorous and we can’t overturn everything. But the design could be better.”
The symposium, entitled Re-thinking the New National Olympic Stadium in the historical context of Gaien, takes place tomorrow and will be streamed live via the Ustream website. Other architects involved include Hidenobu Jinnai, Taro Igarashi, Shinji Miyadai and Tetsuo Furuichi.
Zaha Hadid won a competition to design the stadium in November 2012, seeing off competition from 10 other finalists including Japanese architects SANAA, Toyo Ito and Azusa Sekkei. The judging panel included Tadao Ando, who commented: “The entry’s dynamic and futuristic design embodies the messages Japan would like to convey to the rest of the world.”
The stadium is set to be completed in 2018.
Hadid previously caused controversy over the design of her Aquatics Centre for the London 2012 Olympic Games, which featured 600 seats with restricted views of the diving events. See more news about Zaha Hadid »
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Zaha Hadid’s 2020 Olympic Stadium appeared first on Dezeen.
This towering commercial block in Ginza, Tokyo, by Amano Design Office features a faceted aluminium facade reminiscent of a crumpled-up sweet wrapper (+ slideshow).
Tokyo-based Amano Design Office was asked to design an eye-catching building that would entice shoppers from Ginza’s Central Street to a second shopping street just beyond.
The nine-storey tower accommodates small units that can be used as either offices or shops. Apart from the glazed ground floor, each storey is concealed behind a double-layer facade that comprises a perforated metal exterior and a clear glass interior.
The architects used computers to generate the faceted aluminium form, then added a floral pattern to soften the appearance.
“In the neighbourhood of mostly modernist architecture with horizontal and vertical or geometric shapes, the building has a proper feeling of strangeness, attracts special attention and has an appeal as a commercial building,” they explained.
Lighting installed behind the metal panels is programmed to change colour depending on the season, switching between shades of red, blue and green.
“The facade becomes a part of the interior decoration and obviates the need for window treatments such as blinds or curtains,” added the architects.
Other commercial buildings from Japan with unusual facades include a herringbone-patterned boutique designed by OMA and a Tokyo bookstore covered in hundreds of interlocking T-shapes. See more architecture in Tokyo »
Photography is by Nacasa & Partners.
Here’s the project description from the architects:
Dear Ginza Building
The client is a developer company. It purchased a long-sought after lot in Ginza, and planned to build a commercial/office building. The building site is on the Ginza 1-chome Gaslight Street, which is one street behind the Ginza Central Street. It is on the back side of the Mizuho Bank and Pola Ginza buildings on the Central Street. The atmosphere is quite different from the gorgeous Central Street, and the site is on an empty street which is often seen behind the street with large-sized buildings. Attracting as many people as possible into such a street is our task. The client desired the building to be a gorgeous existence. In addition, the designer desired to provide a “slight feeling of strangeness” to the passersby that would attract them to the building.
Considering the views from the inside, simply obtaining openness with glass seems futile, since the outside scenery is hopeless. Therefore, a double skin structure is employed, which consists of glass curtain walls and graphically treated aluminium punched metal. The facade becomes a part of the interior decoration and obviates the need for window treatments such as blinds or curtains. By using a double skin, reduction of the air conditioning load and the glass cleaning burden was also intended.
The irregular facade design was determined by computing a design to avoid arbitrary forms and to approximate forms in nature. We thought that a well-made incidental form would likely be a less-disagreeable design. In the neighbourhood of mostly modernist architecture with horizontal and vertical or geometric shapes, the building has a proper feeling of strangeness, attracts special attention, and has an appeal as a commercial building. The abstract flower graphic is used to balance the impression of the facade, i.e., to free it up from becoming too edgy.
By computing the design, individual aluminium punched panels are irregular with different angles and shapes, yet all fit into a standard size, resulting in excellent material yield. To avoid being clunky, an extremely lightweight structure is required. Therefore, much caution was taken in its details. The coloured LED upper lighting, which is installed inside the double skin, entertains the passersby with different programs depending on the season. Expected tenants included a beauty salon and aesthetic salon, and the expectations are materialising.
Building location: Ginza-1-chome, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Completion year: March 2013
Designer: amano design office
Collaborators: Atorie Oica, Azzurro Architects
Construction firm: Kumagai Gumi Co.,Ltd.
Main use: store building and office building
Lot size: 187.20 sqm
Building area: 155.55 sqm
Total floor space: 1300.02 sqm
Maximum height above rail level: 31.955 m
Structure: steel frame
Number of stairs or stories: nine storeys above ground and one underground story
Main material: aluminium graphic punching metal, extruded cement panel
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Amano Design Office appeared first on Dezeen.
Paper-thin shutters fold out from the walls of this narrow timber house in Tokyo by Japanese firm Unemori Architects (+ slideshow).
Unemori Architects clad the entire exterior with timber boards, then added matching shutters across the large windows.
“At the second and third floor there is a large hinged door in each room. If it’s opened, the inside of the room is enveloped in light and wind as if you are outside,” explained architect Hiroyuki Unemori.
Unemori positioned windows to offer the best views of the building’s surroundings. “The window is so big against the small rooms that every time a window opens or closes the view inside dramatically changes,” he added.
Small House accommodates a couple with a small child and is located within a densely populated suburban area of the city.
An entrance slotted into the corner of the building leads through to a circular white staircase, which spirals up to three storeys above and down to one below. Each floor contains one room, including two bedrooms, a dining room and a kitchen.
A glass-fronted bathroom is positioned on the roof and faces out onto the surrounding rooftops across a triangular roof terrace.
The architects used single layers of timber to construct the floors, which match furniture, surfaces and cupboards in the dining room and kitchen.
The compact site also includes a small driveway and a narrow space to park bicycles.
Other Japanese residences we’ve recently featured include a house with a staggered interior and gently sloping roof, a house lifted off the ground by a single central pillar and a tall house with views of a nearby observation tower.
See more Japanese houses »
See more architecture and design in Japan »
Photography is by Ken Sasajima.
Here’s some project description from the architects:
Small House
The small house which the married couple and their child live stands in the densely populated area in Tokyo. Though the neighbouring houses is very close, I aimed to design the house which exceed the physical narrowness living at the city.
I laid out the 4m×4m building as small as I could at the centre of site area 34m2 and made some space for flowing of light and wind around it. And by making the space, it’s possible to avoid setback regulation and it has the 9m high volume like a tower.
The inside is simple structure what is separated by the 4 floor boards and is jointed by spiral stairway.
Especially, by making some extremely thin floor boards (thickness 70mm) , the up and down floor boards got close and connected the whole space of the house without a break.
The space of around the house is useful to let light and wind in. The wall of the rooms borders the outside, so I put windows in the best position that harmonising with its surroundings.
And the window is so big against the small room, every time the window opens or closes, the inside view dramatically changes.
Especially, at the second and third floor there is a large hinged door each room, if it is opened, the inside of the room is enveloped in light and wind as if you are outside.
By making the thin floor boards for connecting with their life and making the large windows what are opened toward the city, I aimed to exceed the segmentation, for example the upstairs and the downstairs, the inside and the outside, a building and the town, etc. to broaden the whole image of a house.
Location: Meguro-ku,Tokyo
Principal use: private residence
Family type: couple and child
Parking space: One car
Site area: 34.27 m2
Building area: 17.47 sqm
Total floor area: 67.34 sqm
Plot ratio: 146.4%
Structural systems: steel frame
Scale: 1 basement and 4 storeys
Completion: August 2010
Materials：Exterior wall – flexible board t=8mm siding water-repellent coating, roof – FRP waterproof t=3mm topcoat, interior wall – whiteboard t=3mm, ceiling – lauan plywood t=4mm CL, floor – lauan plywood t=12mm UC
Architect：Unemori Architects
Structural engineer：Structured Environment
Developer : Taishin Construction
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Unemori Architects appeared first on Dezeen.
L’artiste française basée à Tokyo, Emmanuelle Moreaux présente son oeuvre « 100 Colors » dans le cadre du Shinjuku Creators Festa 2013 organisé à Tokyo. Son installation, faite de papier traditionnel japonais, module un espace aux couleurs acidulées. Une oeuvre magnifique à découvrir en images.
Tomato vines suspended over conference tables and broccoli fields in the reception are part of working life at this Japan office by Kono Designs (+ slideshow).
New York firm Kono Designs created the urban farm in 2010, in a nine-storey office building in Tokyo to allow employees to grow and harvest their own food at work. Dezeen spoke with company principal Yoshimi Kono this week to hear more about the project.
“Workers in nearby buildings can be seen pointing out and talking about new flowers and plants and even the seasons – all in the middle of a busy intersection in Tokyo’s metropolitan area,” Kono told Dezeen. “The change in the way local people think and what they talk about was always one of the long-term goals of the project.”
The creation of the new headquarters for Japanese recruitment firm Pasona consisted of refurbishing a 50 year old building to include office areas, an auditorium, cafeterias, a rooftop garden and urban farming facilities. Inside the 19,974 square metre office building there are 3995 square metres dedicated to green space that house over 200 species of plants, fruits, vegetables and rice.
Kono told Dezeen that all of the food is harvested, prepared and served on-site in the cafeterias – making Pasona’s Urban Farm the largest farm-to-table office scheme in Japan.
Pasona employees are encourage to maintain and harvest the crops and are supported by a team of agricultural specialists.
“My client has a larger vision to help create new farmers in urban areas of Japan and a renewed interest in that lifestyle,” Kono told Dezeen.
“One way to encourage this is to not just tell urban communities about farms and plants, but to actively engage with them through both a visual intervention in their busy lifestyle and educational programs focusing on farming methods and practices that are common in Japan,” he added.
The building has a double-skin green facade where flowers and orange trees are planted on small balconies. From the outside, the office block appears to be draped in green foliage.
“The design focus was not on the imposed standards of green, where energy offsets and strict efficiency rates rule,” said Kono. “But rather on an idea of a green building that can change the way people think about their daily lives and even their own personal career choice and life path.”
Inside the offices, tomato vines are suspended above conference tables, lemon and passion fruit trees are used as partitions for meeting spaces, salad leaves are grown inside seminar rooms and bean sprouts are grown under benches.
Plants hang in bags surrounding meeting desks and there are vines growing within vertical cages and wooden plant boxes around the building.
Ducts, pipes and vertical shafts were rerouted to the perimeter of the building to allow for maximum height ceilings and a climate control system is used to monitor humidity, temperature and air flow in the building to ensure it is safe for the employees and suitable for the farm.
“It is important not to just think about how we can use our natural resources better from a distance, but to actively engage with nature and create new groups of people who have a deep interest and respect for the world they live in,” said Kono.
“It is important to note that this is not a passive building with plants on the walls, this is an actively growing building, with plantings used for educational workshops where Pasona employees and outside community members can come in and learn farming practices.”
Yoshimi Kono studied architecture in Tokyo and was a chief designer with Shigeru Uchida at Studio 80 in Tokyo and later became partner at Vignelli Associates in New York. He founded Kono Designs in 2000.
Plants growing on the outside and inside of buildings have been popular on Dezeen recently. Other features include the news that botanist Patrick Blanc has unveiled his latest green wall during Paris Design Week yesterday and we reported on Blanc’s collaboration with French architect Jean Nouvel to create the world’s tallest living wall in Sydney.
See more plant features »
See more offices »
See more green design »
Photographs are courtesy of Kono Designs.
Here’s a project description:
Pasona Urban Farm
Located in down-town Tokyo, Pasona HQ is a nine story high, 215,000 square foot corporate office building for a Japanese recruitment company, Pasona Group. Instead of building a new structure from ground up, an existing 50 years old building was renovated, keeping its building envelope and superstructure.
The project consists of a double-skin green facade, offices, an auditorium, cafeterias, a rooftop garden and most notably, urban farming facilities integrated within the building. The green space totals over 43,000 square feet with 200 species including fruits, vegetables and rice that are harvested, prepared and served at the cafeterias within the building. It is the largest and most direct farm-to-table of its kind ever realised inside an office building in Japan.
The double-skin green facade features seasonal flowers and orange trees planted within the 3′ deep balconies. Partially relying on natural exterior climate, these plants create a living green wall and a dynamic identity to the public. This was a significant loss to the net rentable area for a commercial office. However, Pasona believed in the benefits of urban farm and green space to engage the public and to provide better workspace for their employees.
The balconies also help shade and insulate the interiors while providing fresh air with operable windows, a practical feature not only rare for a mid rise commercial building but also helps reduce heating and cooling loads of the building during moderate climate. The entire facade is then wrapped with deep grid of fins, creating further depth, volume and orders to the organic green wall.
Within the interior, the deep beams and large columns of the existing structure are arranged in a tight interval causing low interior ceiling of 7′-6″. With building services passing below, some area was even lower at 6′-8″. Instead, all ducts, pipes and their vertical shafts were re-routed to the perimeter, allowing maximum height with exposed ceilings between the beams.
Lightings are then installed, hidden on the bottom vertical edge of the beams, turning the spaces between the beams into a large light cove without further lowering the ceiling. This lighting method, used throughout the workspace from second floor to 9th floor, achieved 30% less energy than the conventional ceiling mounted method.
Besides creating a better work environment, Pasona also understands that in Japan opportunities for job placement into farming are very limited because of the steady decline of farming within the country. Instead, Pasona focuses on educating and cultivating next generation of farmers by offering public seminars, lectures and internship programs.
The programs empower students with case studies, management skills and financial advices to promote both traditional and urban farming as lucrative professions and business opportunities. This was one of the main reason for Pasona to create urban farm within their headquarters in downtown Tokyo, aiming to reverse the declining trend in the number of farmers and to ensure sustainable future food production.
Currently, Japan produces less than one-third of their grain locally and imports over 50 million tons of food annually, which on average is transported over 9,000 miles, the highest in the world. As the crops harvested in Pasona HQ are served within the building cafeterias, it highlights ‘zero food mileage’ concept of a more sustainable food distribution system that reduces energy and transportation cost.
Japan’s reliance on imported food is due to its limited arable land. Merely 12% of its land is suitable for cultivation. Farmland in Pasona HQ is highly efficient urban arable land, stacked as a vertical farm with modern farming technology to maximise crop yields.
Despite the increased energy required in the upkeep of the plants, the project believes in the long term benefits and sustainability in recruiting new urban farmers to practice alternative food distribution and production by creating more urban farmland and reducing food mileage in Japan.
Using both hydroponic and soil based farming, in Pasona HQ, crops and office workers share a common space. For example, tomato vines are suspended above conference tables, lemon and passion fruit trees are used as partitions for meeting spaces, salad leaves are grown inside seminar rooms and bean sprouts are grown under benches.
The main lobby also features a rice paddy and a broccoli field. These crops are equipped with metal halide, HEFL, fluorescent and LED lamps and an automatic irrigation system. An intelligent climate control system monitors humidity, temperature and breeze to balance human comfort during office hours and optimise crop growth during after hours. This maximises crop yield and annual harvests.
Besides future sustainability of farmers, Pasona HQ’s urban farm is beyond visual and aesthetic improvement. It exposes city workers to growing crops and interaction with farmland on a daily basis and provides improvement in mental health, productivity and relaxation in the workplace. Studies show that most people in urbanised societies spend over 80% of their time indoors. Plants are also known to improve the air quality we breathe by carbon sequestration and removing volatile organic compound. A sampling on the air at Pasona HQ have shown reduction of carbon dioxide where plants are abundant. Such improvement on the air quality can increase productivity at work by 12%, improves common symptoms of discomfort and ailments at work by 23%, reduce absenteeism and staff turnover cost.
Employees of Pasona HQ are asked to participate in the maintenance and harvesting of crops with the help of agricultural specialists. Such activity encourages social interaction among employees leading to better teamwork on the job. It also provides them with a sense of responsibility and accomplishment in growing and maintaining the crops that are ultimately prepared and served to their fellow co-workers at the building’s cafeterias.
Pasona Urban Farm is a unique workplace environment that promotes higher work efficiency, social interaction, future sustainability and engages the wider community of Tokyo by showcasing the benefits and technology of urban agriculture.
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by Kono Designs appeared first on Dezeen.
News: the forthcoming National Stadium of Japan by Zaha Hadid Architects is now set to become the main sporting venue for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games, following the news that Tokyo will be the host city.
The new 80,000-seat stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2020 games, as well as athletics, football and rugby events.
“The stadium will become an integral part of Tokyo’s urban fabric, directly engaging with the surrounding cityscape to connect and carve the elegant forms of the design,” said Zaha Hadid, after winning a competition to design the stadium in November.
“Our three decades of research into Japanese architecture and urbanism is evident in our winning design and we greatly look forward to building the new National Stadium,” she added.
Set to replace the existing Kasumigaoka National Stadium, the new building will join Kenzo Tange’s iconic 1964 Olympic stadium in Yoyogi Park, which will function as a handball arena this time around. Zaha Hadid Architects will also work on this building, renovating the structure and adding a retractable roof.
Two other venues from the 1964 games – the Nippon Budokan and the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium – will also be reused, offering venues for judo and table tennis.
Additional arenas will be constructed in downtown Tokyo in an effort to save energy and reduce the need for transport investment, while the Olympic village is proposed on Tokyo’s harbour and will be converted into housing after the games are over.
Tokyo was named as the host city for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games over the weekend and will follow on from Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Find out more about Rio 2016 »
Zaha Hadid Architects previously designed the Aquatics Centre for the London Olympics in 2012, which recently had its two temporary wing-like seating stands removed. See more architecture by Zaha Hadid »
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around Zaha Hadid’s stadium appeared first on Dezeen.
Wooden chairs were piled on top of one another to create the shelves of this pop-up shop for skincare brand Aesop in a Tokyo shopping centre.
Designed by Aesop creative manager Hiroko Shiratori, the Aesop Midtown Installation created a temporary store for the brand earlier this summer in front of a pair of elevators in the Tokyo Midtown Galleria.
Half of the chairs were turned upside down to create the stacks, which formed the display areas for rows of Aesop’s signature brown bottles.
Quotes from various philosophers were inscribed onto the sides of a few selected chairs, plus some were still used as places to sit.
The space was completed by the addition of a wooden counter and a fully functioning sink.
Dezeen interviewed Aesop founder Dennis Paphitis in 2012 about his brand, which regularly commissions designers to come up with unique concepts for stores. He explained: “I was horrified at the thought of a soulless chain”.
Other interesting branches include a Singapore shop with coconut-husk string hanging from the ceiling and a New York kiosk made from piles of newspapers. See more Aesop stores »
Here’s some extra information from Aesop:
Aesop enjoyed a temporary residence in Tokyo Midtown Galleria from 24 April until late June, 2013.
Designed by Aesop Creative Manager Hiroko Shiratori, the interior employed utilitarian chairs in clever linear assembly to create makeshift walls, borders and shelves.
This transitory Midtown installation complemented the brand’s permanent signature stores in Aoyama, Ginza, Shin-Marunouchi, Yokohama and Shibuya. It offered a complete range of skin, hair and body care, and was fitted with a demonstration sink to facilitate the immersive sensorial experience for which Aesop is renowned.
Hiroko studied at the Royal College of Art and Chelsea College and Tokyo Zokei University. She has exhibited in London, Milan, Cologne and Tokyo and her work has been featured in Wallpaper, Casa Brutus, Domus Web, Axis and similar publications and sites.
Aesop was founded in Melbourne in 1987 and today offers its superlative skin, hair and body care products in more than sixty signature stores internationally. As the company evolves – new stores open soon in Hong Kong, London, and New York – meticulously considered and sophisticated design remain paramount to the creation of each space.
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by Hiroko Shiratori appeared first on Dezeen.
Japanese studio Tetsuo Kondo Architects teamed up with environmental engineering firm Transsolar to encase a cloud inside this transparent two-storey cube (+ slideshow).
Tetsuo Kondo and Transsolar previously collaborated to produce an indoor cloud at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2010 and this second Cloudscapes installation recreated the experience in the sunken courtyard of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT).
The cloud effect was formed by pumping three layers of air into the space. Cold dry air went in at the bottom, while hot humid air was fed into the middle and hot dry air was pumped in at the top.
This produced a canopy of clouds at the centre of the cube, which visitors could climb through using a central staircase.
“The temperature and humidity inside the container are controlled to keep the clouds at their designed height,” explained Tetsuo Kondo.
The transparent cube surrounding the cloud was built from a framework of metal tubes, with cross bracing that allowed the structure to respond to outside wind pressure.
“The edges of the clouds are sharp yet soft, and always in motion,” added the architect. “Their colour, density and brightness are constantly changing in tune with the weather and time of day.”
Tetsuo Kondo Architects also recently completed a family house that looks like a stack of cubes on the outside, but opens up inside to form one big bright space. See more design by Tetsuo Kondo »
Clouds have featured in a couple of recent stories on Dezeen, including an art installation in a beaux-arts style room and a prefabricated holiday home. See more weather-themed architecture and design »
Here’s a project description from Tetsuo Kondo:
Cloudscapes at MOT
We created a small bank of clouds in the Sunken Garden of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The clouds billow softly in a compact, transparent container and can be seen from the entrance hall, exhibition galleries, outdoor plaza, and other parts of the museum.
Climb the stairs inside the clouds’ container. When you climb beyond the clouds to reach the top, the museum, the surrounding buildings, and the sky stretch out above the clouds. The edges of the clouds are sharp yet soft, and always in motion. Their colour, density and brightness are constantly changing in tune with the weather and time of day. The temperature and humidity inside the container are controlled to keep the clouds at their designed height. The air inside the container forms three distinct strata, one cool and dry, at the bottom, a warm and humid middle stratum, and a hot and dry stratum at the top. The warm, humid layer is where the clouds form.
The transparent container is constructed of 48.6 millimetre diameter pipe. The elastic material added to the mid region, at a 6 metre ceiling height, makes the structure as a whole responsive to wind pressure. That elastic material also makes it possible to build the transparent container of nothing but thin pipes. The double layers of vinyl sheets dividing the strata ensure stability of temperature and humidity inside the structure.
The constantly changing clouds are both soft structures and part of the natural environment that surrounds us. It is not the structure alone but the invisible differences in humidity and temperature and the weather, the time of day, and other aspects of the surrounding environment, all influencing each other, little by little, that make this work an artistic whole.
Cloudscapes is, in effect, an experiment in creating a new type of architectural space, one that achieves integration in engagement with its environment.
Collaboration with Transsolar/Matthias Schuler
Location: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Program: installation
Completion period: December 2012
Architect: Tetsuo Kondo Architects
Structural Engineer: Konishi Structural Engineers
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Architects and Transsolar appeared first on Dezeen.
« Night Stroll » est le nom de cette vidéo imaginée par Tao Tajima, tournant différents plans de la capitale japonaise de nuit avant d’ajouter en post-production l’apparition de diverses formes géométriques lumineuses, permettant de donner à cette création une belle ambiance. Une belle promenade nocturne dans Tokyo.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
