Nippori Station is where the Narita line transfers to the Yamanote line. It is the first station where foreign tourists arrive, a number that has increased recently. Many foreigners move to the transfer trains while dragging their suitcases. Yanaka Ginza is located to the west side of the station. It is a popular sightseeing spot where old-fashioned townscapes are surprisingly well-preserved as they escaped war damage and the large scale development in the city center. Nippori station holds 14 train tracks. It consisted of 2 bridge outsite of ticket gate that connects west-east side of the station, and 3 bridges that connects several platform inside the ticket gates. The bridge that connects the east and west side of the city located in the north is a famous spot called the “Train Museum”, crowded with people who come to watch many kinds of trains pass on the track. In the future, where the ticket gate will be touchless and gateless, there will be nothing to separate these two bridges from each other. Exploring the use of local potential for the tourism in future, what would bridge of Nippori station will look like? The two types of bridges are connected so that people can come and go in between and a luggage service is set up on the Keisei line side. This will create an opportunity for the foreign tourists to use their spare time enjoyably while waiting for flights at Narita airport, or for the of hotel check-in, by being able to walk in Yanaka Ginza. A middle floor between the platform and the bridge is installed to develop a train museum. For the local people this intervention will become the base of spreading the culture of Yanaka Ginza to foreign countries. In the flow of local people and foreign visitors passing by each other, the fusion space of two kinds of bridges will be the meeting point where cultures form distant foreign countries meet each other. This is symbolized by the roof structure that alternately straddles the two bridges.
Hersey House
Reading Hersey House-an unbuilt project by Robert Venturi for a beach house with no particular plot-we be came fascinated by the way this small house pretends to be bigger with its thin extended roof, hiding its smallness behind a projecting porch with a big cutout circle. In our project inspired by Hersey House, we aimed to keep and reinterpret the thin roof, making it almost as big as possible, but shifting it from its central position, in order to create different spaces underneath.
We kept the clearly defined orientation of the house, designing its entrance on the opposite side to the general approach, in a way similar to Hersey House.
Looking at the plan, all rooms are set to one side, leaving room for one big open space, but unlike in Hersey house, we decided to continue this openness into the second floor, creating a loft-like space.
We reinterpreted the porch or second skin, as we like to call it, by a wooden mesh-like construction with a cantilever behind, in order to create a parking space necessary in Tokyo’s urban context and also in order to provide a somewhat playful reference to House in Uehara house by Kazuo Shinohara, situated just a few doors away.
Lastly, we decided to keep the stilts of Hersey House and adjust them to our sloping terrain, because we thought of them as characteristic of Hersey’s image. Moreover, put ting the house up on legs gives a certain hint about its origin, suggesting that it came from somewhere else.
Shibuya Backflow
Societies have understood and approached the commons from many different point of views that have shaped our cities for centuries. The ʻʻjuristʼʼ point of view can be simply described as looking at the urban realm in two main areas, the private and the public, which work together and perceive the commons as by-products of their relationship. This approach degrades the importance and value of the commons (resources). On the other hand, an entropy perceives the commons (resources) as the foundation of society, followed by the public and then by the private. Therefore, in our proposal we are unlocking this resource and use it as the basic element that will influence both the public and the private, and not the other way around, as in the juristʼs point of view. Due to the limited use, the river is underutilized which gives a private distinctiveness. In the case of Shibuya River, there are important questions to ask one selves. What is the reason of the current bad shape of the river? And in what way should the natural resource be limited to ensure a long-term viability for the city? The plan is to revitalize and unlock Shibuya River.
Re-a-pier
Odaiba, as an artificial island, started with a lot of locked Res communis, such as the water, beaches, plants etc. However, Odaiba was almost abandoned after the Second World War. The access to the island and its resources were also extremely limited, so few people went to the Odaiba area during that period. Then, the government wanted to change Odaiba area into a commercial center, building Lex communis such as piers and waterfront promenades along the coastline to attract more people. Because of this Lex communis, a series of Praxis communis appeared such as photography. As such, the Odaiba waterfront reached the current ecology balance. However, the frequency and the variety of the Praxis communis is not sufficient since the Lex communis provided is not efficient and the Res communis cannot be fully unlocked. The proposal of our group is the redesign of the existing piers. We used the same structure systems and designed a series of piers with different topics to provide for various experiences for both local residents and tourists. And, more activities (Praxis communis) will happen along the waterfront by the enhanced Lex communis. As such, more Res communis will be unlocked. Consequently, the ecology after the proposal will become more lively and dynamic.
Bat Balance
Balanced on a cherry tree at almost four meters heights, Bat House stands out in the open space near Building 3 in Midorigaoka Area and offers refuges for bats. The concept of balance is inspired by animals behavior and get along with the interplay of forces that characterize trees from roots to leaves. The new appendage is based on a singular repeated construction system that, working on other parameters, generates variation of parts. The joints have not only structural function but are also the matrix of the spaces that bats need.