The Casa Carlos Bereiras is a most ambivalent building. While partly hidden behind fragile walls on the street sides, the facade tends to dissolve the volume, mostly by the fractured windows, all set at a slight angle.
On the side facing the neighbors, the apparent volume is increased by a wall on top of the building – but with nothing behind it. The circulation within the building is merely a sequence of rooms.
We mainly kept the layout, since we liked it. But we tried to adapt the heavy materials and construction to fit a more Japanese environment.
Vos
House Atrium / Atelier Bow- Wow
Yoyogi / Start Up Station
Standing with its platform parallel to the road, Yoyogi station is a hidden building with few parts exposed to the city. At the west exit, the building facade that faces the intersection is in line with other buildings. Passing through this exit, the stairs divide to cross the Central line, Sobu line and the Yamanote line, and reach the small east entrance. The station has unique characteristics such as the staircase rising towards the platform, or the west exit orientation that is adjusted to the city blocks. Distinctive steps were taken to coordinate the various cir- cumstances in the station building.
Yoyogi flourished due to young people as various academic facilities of preparatory and animation schools were established in this area. However, as Japan is facing a declining birth- rate, the state of the city is starting to change. In the future, the ticket gates may change into gateless or touchless which then create a wider space inside the station. In these circumstan- ces, what would the station look like if the station planned to provide an incubation office for creative individuals who dreamt of entrepreneurship and startups?
An atrium was created by removing the wall on the first floor of the West exit station building and the floor of the second-floor courtyard. The third floor was raised and the boundary with the platform was removed. This way, the existing platform, 2nd and 3rd floor became steps that shifted half a floor. As these various steps of courtyards, floors, and platform with new stairs connect, variations of visual permeability within the station building are created. Resi- dents will work mainly in the spaces on the 2nd and 3rd floors. With this new station, they will be able to freely publicize themselves to the station users and be able to interact with each other.
Bike On Fragments
The idea is to improve Tokyo bikeability taking as starting point the existing bikeable roads in Tokyo. Those streets represented a qualitative designed for bike. Re-named “fragment” because of their characteristic feature if being interrupted at some point – feature that also allow these streets to be distinguished by low traffic – or being accidentally found while riding. The aim is not to establish a fixed network between those. The intention is instead to provide small interventions on these streets, according existing potential of those situations, leaving the free choice to combine these “bikeable fragments” with other situations (local streets or main streets) according to the needs of the users.
Izakaya
Izakaya was not considered as essential work during the covid-19 pandemic. Considering the change of working lifestyle such as working remotely from their houses, we have focused on the residential area. Researching the typologies of the Izakaya, we noticed the binary division between Primary and Tertiary industries. The selected residential area, Ookayama has many plum trees, which can be used for the production of Umeshu. This can help to dissolve the binary. According to the architectural typologies, we propose three types of new Izakaya combining with plum production: A: movable Izakaya kitchen car, B: Izakaya taxi which connect to the urban mobility, C: Izakaya park which has relationship with the outside.