Le réalisateur Luigi Pane a imaginé avec l’agence DLV BBDO Milano pour Yamaha cette superbe vidéo présentant le « Dark Side of Japan ». Produite par abstract:groove, cette création nous plonge dans un Tokyo peu mis en avant dans les médias, sombre et intrigant. Une superbe vidéo à découvrir dans la suite.
Situés dans le quartier de Roppongi à Tokyo, les bureaux japonais de Google ont été pensés par les équipes de Klein Dytham. Mélangeant avec talent les influences occidentales à celles du pays du Soleil levant, des images de cet environnement aux multiples ambiances sont à découvrir dans la suite.
Tokyo practice Klein Dytham Architecture referenced traditional Japanese festivals, bathhouses, fishponds and timber houses for the interior of Google’s new Japan office (+ slideshow).
Occupying several floors of the KPF-designed Roppongi Hills tower in Tokyo, Google Japan is intended to repeat the colourful and imaginative designs of the internet company’s other offices, but to also bring elements of local history and culture into each of the spaces.
“Google request that each of their national offices around the world reflects the unique culture of its location,” explain architects Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein. “[Our] design for the earlier phases of the project had taken cues from the graphics of traditional Japanese fabrics and contemporary anime, but then Google requested an even more vivid evocation of Japanese culture.”
The architects imagined a typical bathhouse for one floor. White ceramic tiles cover the floors, while computer stations look like dressing tables with large mirrors and a painted mural of Mount Fuji spans the rear wall.
Elsewhere, perforated concrete-block walls define corridors through workspaces, intended to evoke narrow residential alleys. Informal meeting areas can be glimpsed through the perforations and are designed to look like little parks.
Different zones are marked by different colours and follow the palette of Google’s logos. Some of these logos can be spotted in the patterned wallpapers, which the architects based on Japan’s timber architecture.
Other details include a hairy cafe surrounded by carwash brushes, a mobile street-food stall and a digital fish pond populated with interactive koi carp. “[We were] looking to communicate the Japanese context without resorting to cliche”, say the architects.
Other Google office interiors completed in recent years include the Tel Aviv office, which includes a meeting area filled with orange trees, and the London headquarters, featuring Union Jack flags and allotments where staff can grow vegetables. See more stories about Google.
Klein Dytham Architecture’s other projects include YouTube’s Tokyo production studio, plus a bookstore that uses the logo of the brand on its walls. Dytham discusses this project in an interview we filmed at the World Architecture Festival last year. See more architecture by Klein Dytham Architecture.
Here’s a project description from Klein Dytham Architecture:
Klein Dytham architecture
Google Japan Phases 1,2,3,4
Klein Dytham architecture (KDa) recently completed an additional phase to their design for Google’s Japan office. This ambitious interior project is located in the Roppongi Hills tower in central Tokyo.
In such a large project one of KDa’s key challenges was to develop a way to expand Google’s facilities that wasn’t repetitive or boring, and which also assisted wayfinding. To help staff feel comfortable and prevent visitors from becoming lost, KDa defined various zones across the floors and gave each a distinct character. Each zone was assigned a specific colour, the colours being modulated through different tones. This creates a “necklace” of differently coloured meeting rooms, each with a specific name and character, strung around the building’s large central core.
On the one of the floors, KDa defined the circulation route around the meeting rooms with the perforated concrete block walls common in Tokyo’s winding residential lanes. In the city these block walls often provide glimpses into lush gardens, and KDa used them here to allow views into enticing spaces beyond the walls. Each of these “pocket parks” has a huge wall graphic of brightly coloured plants and can be used for gatherings and informal meetings.
KDa also placed landmarks at key positions to help staff and visitors identify their location and navigate around the floor. KDa have provided mini- kitchens where staff can grab snacks and drinks, each space decorated a different colour. After having designed kitchens themed by Google colours – blue, yellow, red, green – on the lower floors, KDa then looked to create something even more memorable: a bight blue “hairy kitchen” clad in the giant brushes used in automatic carwashes.
Google request that each of their national offices around the world reflects the unique culture of its location. KDa’s design for the earlier phases of the project had taken cues from the graphics of traditional Japanese fabrics and contemporary anime, but then Google requested an even more vivid evocation of Japanese culture. Looking to communicate the Japanese context without resorting to cliché KDa incorporated surprising elements such as a full-scale yatai (mobile food stall) and a digital koi pond that greets people at one of the entrances – responding to hidden sensors, carp projected onto the floor move towards those who enter the space as if expecting to be fed.
A set of spaces on another floor was themed after a sento, the traditional neighbourhood bathhouses now fast disappearing from Japan’s cities. Passing through a traditional noren curtain, leads to space instantly recognisable as a “wash area”, complete white ceramic tiles, wooden stools, and computer screens cunningly configured where mirrors would be expected. This leads on to a spacious “soaking bath” area – actually a presentation and training room – which like classic sento features a huge mural of Mount Fuji specially created for Google by one of Japan’s last living mural painters. This space is also used for external events, with the “wash area” becoming a reception space for drinks and catering.
Nearby, a group of meeting rooms have a matsuri (traditional neighbourhood festival) theme. Here, red and orange wallpaper picks up patterns from the yukata robes and happi coats worn at festivals, wall graphics show photos of festival scenes, and sake and beer crates both act as impromptu seating and create a relaxed party atmosphere.
For previous sections of the interior, KDa created brightly coloured wallpaper patterns cleverly derived from refigured Google icons such as the Google Android and Google Map pin. For the new spaces, KDa developed a set of muted, timber-coloured wall graphics whose tone varies from light to dark wood. Subtly evoking Japan’s traditional timber architecture, the patterns occasionally incorporate cunningly hidden icons.
The post Google Japan by
Klein Dytham Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.
If you’ve ever had the good fortune to travel through Tokyo’s Narita Airport, you wouldn’t have missed the stacks of Tokyo Banana Pies in the shops, sitting among all the tasty treats for friends back home….
Continue Reading…
Unfinished concrete is combined with exposed plywood in this Tokyo apartment renovated by Japanese architecture firm TANK (+ slideshow)
TANK wanted to create a more spacious and flexible layout in the compact Japanese apartment, which was previously divided by a narrow corridor into various cramped rooms.
“I considered that the room should have flexibility and the tenant can arrange it as she likes,” explains the designer.
The team began by making the bathroom much larger and inserting sliding doors on both sides, enabling an extra route between the bedroom and the hallway.
The narrow entrance hall is designed as a “Doma” – a traditional Japanese entranceway – with a bare concrete floor that contrasts with the raised wooden flooring of the living area.
An exposed larch frame extends out beneath a raw concrete ceiling, while vertical batons combine with plywood sheets to form a screen dividing the bedroom from the living area.
The bedroom and adjacent closet are doorless, with walls and ceilings designed to look deliberately incomplete.
“There are no doors for the bedroom or walk-in closet,” explains TANK. “The walls and ceiling have an unfinished look, I leave it to the tenant’s taste as to how to utilise these rooms.”
A clear glass lampshade houses a bare bulb that descends from the ceiling in the bedroom, casting long shadows from the wooden frame.
Other projects we’ve featured by TANK on Dezeen include an apartment with floors and ceilings covered in the same boards and a Tokyo apartment with removable patches of carpet to be used as flip flops.
See more Japanese houses on Dezeen, or see our Pinterest board filled with Japanese residences.
The post 8Kumo
by TANK appeared first on Dezeen.
Afin de fêter les 10 ans de Roppongi Hills Mori Tower (gratte-ciel de Tokyo de 238 mètres de hauteur), Tokyo City Symphony propose une expérience splendide basée sur une maquette géante du district de l’immeuble à l’échelle 1/1000 sur laquelle différents mappings absolument incroyables ont été projetés.
Tokyo-based Klein Dytham Architecture has used the television-shaped icon of YouTube’s logo to decorate the walls of the video website’s new production studio in the Japanese capital (+ slideshow).
Architects Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein reproduced the red logo in lacquered ceramic to tile the walls of the reception. The tiles continue through to a lounge and a kitchen area, gradually fading to pink and then white.
“Clear branding is everything in the trillon-clip video landscape we live and surf,” Dytham told Dezeen. “It is seems to work; Time magazine uses the wall in their news articles about YouTube globally!”
In some places the shape is also used to create wooden box shelves, while elsewhere it provides the framework for a wall of black and white photographs.
Located in the KPF-designed Mori Tower, YouTube Space Tokyo is the company’s third video production suite to open, following others in London and Los Angeles, and it contains filming studios, editing rooms, training areas and lounges.
The main studio is arranged in front of a large window, allowing a skyline view as a backdrop for filming. Other features include a long curtain that can be used to partition spaces and modular sofas that can be reconfigured for different formats.
Dytham explains that the biggest challenge was fitting studio lighting into the ceiling heights of a typical office floor. “By locating the studios in areas of the floor plan with the least amount of air-conditioning ducting we could make them work in standard floor to floor heights,” he explained.
Klein Dytham Architecture also recently completed a Tokyo bookstore that, like the YouTube Space, uses the logo of the brand for the pattern on its walls. Dytham discusses this project in an interview we filmed at the World Architecture Festival.
See more architecture by Klein Dytham »
See more new projects in Tokyo »
Read on for more details from Klein Dytham Architecture:
Klein Dytham architecture
YouTube Space Tokyo
Klein Dytham architecture’s (KDa) project has its origins in a global act of generosity. YouTube has created YouTube Space Tokyo that provides free facilities for the use of their top video producers in Asia. Including studios, production suites, training areas, and lounges, the Tokyo center is one of a number of similar facilities YouTube are creating around the world – others are in London and Los Angeles. YouTube’s goal was to create a kind of ‘collaborative production facility’, providing both training and production support to help their most energetic producers elevate their videos to a fully professional level.
KDa’s unique interior project is located high in the Mori Tower in central Tokyo. On entering, the visitors encounter a visually striking wall of red panels derived from the YouTube’s iconic logo – the logo is three-dimensionalized, cast in lightweight ceramic and lacquered. Serving to orient visitors to the facility, the logos fade from bright red in the reception area to pink in the lounge to white in the café and kitchen area.
Around this KDa have arranged production studios, an audio recording space, a green screen studio, control rooms, an editing suite, a make-up room, green rooms, a VIP space, a café, and a large training room for seminars and learning software. All of the spaces – not just the studios – have been designed to allow shooting. The variety of wall surfaces, carpet shades, and ceiling configurations is intended to provide a wide range of settings. One wall serves as a ‘Hall of Fame’ showing images of the top producers. A super-long curtain – made from fabric by famed Tokyo manufacturers, Nuno – snakes through the interior allowing flexible division of the space. A custom-designed sofa can be rearranged to suit a variety of formats – panels, interviews, and so on. The space has also been arranged to maximize the use of the skyline view, including the iconic Tokyo Tower, as a shooting backdrop.
The project is remarkable in squeezing fully equipped production studios into a standard office floor. In the past, production studios required high ceilings to prevent the hot lighting rigs literally cooking performers. Modern LED lights, however, are cool and can be used in the space offered by high-rise office floors. KDa still needed to overcome considerable technical challenges, which they achieved in part by carefully placing the studios in areas of the floor relatively free of ducting and thereby gaining extra ceiling height.
The post YouTube Space Tokyo by
Klein Dytham Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.
Diagonally stepped floors and ceilings divide triangular zones inside this pair of studio apartments in Tokyo by Kiyonobu Nakagame Architect & Associates (+ slideshow).
Located in the Motoazabu area of the city, the apartment block has a rectilinear concrete structure that at a glance could be mistaken for an office building or car park.
“What we aimed to do with this structure was to create something that would blend with its surroundings and maintain absolute simplicity,” explains architect Kiyonobu Nakagame.
Four diagonal supports raise the structure off the ground and create a sheltered car park on the lowest floor, while stairs climb the side of the building to lead into apartments on the first and second storeys.
Both residences have similar layouts, with kitchen worktops lining one wall and glazed bathrooms on the opposite side.
The diagonal step in the floor runs through the centre of each apartment, separating the kitchen and dining zones from the bedroom and study areas, while the staggered ceilings cut across them in the opposite direction.
Other concrete apartment blocks we’ve featured from Japan include a building with boxy balconies in Kyoto and one with indoor balconies in Tokyo. See more architecture in Japan.
Photography is by Shigeo Ogawa.
Here are a few words from Kiyonobu Nakagame:
Motoazabu Apartment sYms
Once known as a high-class residential area, Motoazabu is developing into more of a modern diversified metropolitan region resultant of the economic boom.
The neighborhood consists of skyscrapers like the famous Roppongi Hills development alongside smaller just as unique small developments. But within the chaotic big city life of this area you can still find tranquil quietness.
Above: concept diagram
What we aimed to do with this structure was to create something that would blend with its surroundings and maintain absolute simplicity. The true character of the building can be found on the inside. A structure consisting of four corner columns with a footprint of 6.8m x 7.8m comprising one room.
Above: ground floor plan
The design concept takes in a diagonal line of 450mm in room level difference which lends itself to create four distinct living areas all within a single space. The two different elevations of the floor combined with the two different ceiling heights lends itself to create four distinct living areas all within a single space.
Above: first floor plan
The office and living area take up the stage with views of the city and the bedroom space surrounded by post beams provides openness and a sense of privacy to modern city life in one room.
Design: 2011.01-2011.09
Construction period: 2011.10-2012.06
Above: section A
Structure: Reinforced Concrete
Number of floors: 3
Above: section B
The post Motoazabu Apartment sYms by
Kiyonobu Nakagame Architect & Associates appeared first on Dezeen.
Japanese studio PANDA gave this house in Tokyo a glazed ground floor, then enclosed it in a high concrete-block wall.
Named ST-House, the three-storey building was designed by PANDA to mimic the profiles of its neighbours, as required by local planning regulations. This created a steeply pitching roof on the north side and a right-angled volume to the south.
The single-storey concrete wall borders the site on every side, creating a partially-enclosed terrace surrounding the ground-floor living and dining room.
“By placing concrete block fence along the site border we create semi-interior zone between the walls and the house, so that the interior space is visually extended to the full extent of the site,” explains architect Kozo Yamamoto.
A narrow window stretches up on one side of the facade, revealing the position of a steel staircase leading up to a bathroom and study on the first floor, then a bedroom on the second floor.
Clerestory windows bring light into the top floor from the highest section of the walls, while at ground level glazing skirts the base of the building so that it is screened behind the outer wall.
“We want to provide various conditions of light on each floor,” says Yamamoto.
The house was constructed with a timber frame, while the facade is coated with a clean white render.
Japanese studio PANDA also recently completed NN-House, a little house with a triangular courtyard and an L-shaped roof terrace behind its walls.
See more Japanese houses on Dezeen, including a house that lets light in through the roof.
Photography is by Hiroyuki Hirai.
Read on for more information from PANDA:
ST-House
This small three-storey house is built on a 40m2 lot located in a residential district, which is a few minutes walk from the main road. It is a densely built-up area with small two- or three-storey houses, representing a common living condition in Tokyo.
Therefore our client’s request reflected common demands of urban residents: they wanted living space that is ‘closed’ for security and privacy, but also ‘open and bright’ with sufficient natural light inside.
Due to limited budget and modest lifestyle, the house is a simple three-storey house of wood construction, with each floor accommodating different function. Building height and ceiling heights are automatically determined by north side slant line regulation.
We intend to create a sense of spaciousness in this small volume. In order to maximize the verticality we provide living/dining/kitchen space adjacent to stairway on the ground floor, so that they can experience the full height of the volume from there. By placing concrete block fence along the site border we create semi-interior zone between the walls and the house, so that the interior space is visually extended to the full extent of the site.
We also want to provide various conditions of light on each floor. On the ground floor the entire space is illuminated with indirect light coming from above through the semi-interior zone and stairway, creating soft and diffused effect like artificial lighting. On the contrary they can enjoy direct natural light coming in from windows on the second and third floors.
Architects: PANDA
Architect In Charge: Kozo Yamamoto
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Structural Engineer: a・s・t atelier
Contractor: AZ Construction
Total Floor Area: 62.14 sqm
Building Area: 24.08sqm
Year: 2013
Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image
Above: first floor plan – click for larger image
Above: second floor plan – click for larger image
Above: roof plan – click for larger image
Above: section A – click for larger image
Above: section B – click for larger image
The post ST-House by
PANDA appeared first on Dezeen.
This house in Tokyo by Apollo Architects & Associates has skylights in the roof and holes in the floor plates, allowing daylight to reach right down to the basement (+ slideshow).
Named Neut, the house was designed for a pair of music-lovers, so Apollo Architects & Associates was asked to add a studio with soundproofed concrete walls in the basement of the three-storey structure.
The studio opens out to a glazed triple-height courtyard, which benefits from the light filtering in from above.
A second courtyard is located on the opposite side of the house on the ground floor. This space also sits below a skylight, although it is interrupted by a latticed deck on the uppermost floor.
All bedrooms are positioned on the ground floor, while a living room and bathroom occupy the top floor. All of these rooms face down onto the courtyards through floor-to-ceiling windows.
Interior surfaces are finished in a mixture of raw concrete, white plaster and timber panels. Meanwhile, the facade is dominated by timber louvres, which enclose a cantilevered balcony at the edge of the living room.
Tokyo-based Apollo Architects & Associates is led by Satoshi Kurosaki. The studio also recently completed Still, a concrete house for a surgeon, and Flag, a narrow house with a glazed ground-floor gallery.
See more architecture by Apollo Architects & Associates »
Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.
Here’s a project description from Apollo Architects & Associates:
Neut, Suginami ward, Tokyo
The ophthalmologist couple purchased this narrow, but deep, parcel of land in a quiet neighborhood to build a house where they could enjoy their hobby of listening to the music.
On the basement level, the courtyard and double-pane glazing provide sound-buffer for this RC-structure studio which is insulated on the exterior.
Natural light enters the studio through the courtyard and makes the space exceptionally inhabitable as a basement.
The balcony extends from the building and acts as the canopy over the garage with pilotis and entrance.
The horizontal wooden slats are used as balcony balustrade to block the view from the street while allowing the air to breeze through.
The randomly sized wooden pieces give the facade distinctive appearance. The ground floor contains private rooms such as master bedroom and children’s bedrooms.
The second floor, on the other hand, is intended as family room. The generously-sized gabled-roof space has two courtyards which accentuate the floor plan with their curves.
Through the clerestory windows, the outside scenery and natural light enter the space.
The wet area is separated from the living room by the tiled wall with its upper part glazed. The same wooden panel of the living room ceiling is used in the wet area to create the appearance of a continuous space.
When viewed from inside, the horizontal wooden louver also accentuates the interior space while securing the privacy.
By using only the simple finishing material on the interior, the space has the austere and coordinated feel.
Furthermore, the combination of concrete and wood, as well as the gabled roof motif add warmth to the room’s ambience.
This design technique allows the occupants to forget that they are in a dense residential district. It is one of the most popular solutions in the urban setting.
The post Neut by Apollo Architects
& Associates appeared first on Dezeen.
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.
