This condominium, consisting of thirteen apartments, aimed to stock high quality urban residences foreseeing fifty years from that time.
Condominiums have been produced in large quantity day to day and become one of the significant factors to metabolise cities. Nevertheless, due to the disposition to seek for efficiency, plans and facades are easy to be standardised. In addition, they are spatially tight because of the consideration of cost and regulations. It is the project’s aim to cause a stir in the actual situation of such designs and to improve Japanese condominiums.
Its ceiling height is set up from 3 to 8 meters, and TWFS (the Thick Wall and Floor Structure) method provides open spaces without any concavity and convexity of columns and beams inside. The typical floor plan is two-apartment type, which has taken daylight, ventilation, and privacy into account.
Double-layered floor and ceiling provide free plan, design scope, and value as a real estate for users. In general, buildings dictated by the factors of demands of clients, such as profit and efficiency, and regulations tend to create a poor environment without green. The Honda office, next to the site, however has abundant green that is rarely seen. This building attempted to improve the surroundings by laying down green on the bottom harmonized with that green in addition to the implementation of demands of the client and regulations.
The design of facade encouraging sensitivity of Japan
Facade by means of the TWFS expresses the spatial proportion and composition which are reminiscent in Japanese people, such as the slender shape of the Japanese wooden frame architecture, the delicacy of the wooden fittings, and so on, in the international city, Tokyo.
On the east and south facades, varied height of rooms and balconies alternatively appear, and the part of the emergency hatches creates longitudinal rhythm. Even the details that are normally neglected were carefully considered and designed as urban components. The grating-like windows might be conceived as an appearance of Japanese traditional manner and each of them was allocated for views and ventilation with the consideration of internal human scale.
Project Details:
Location: Minami-aoyama, Tokyo, Japan
Type: Housing – Residential
Architects: CHIAKI ARAI URBAN & ARCHITECTURE DESIGN – www.chiaki-arai.com
Client: Daiwa House Industry Co., Ltd.
Site Area: 629.85㎡
Built-up area: 323.64㎡
Gross Floor Area: 2,429.21㎡
Completion Date: March 2005 to March 2006
Team: Design team \ Chiaki Arai, Ryoichi Yoshizaki, Masanori Asai, Emico Iguchi
Supervision\ Masanori Asai
Structural Engineer\ TIS and Partners
Engineer and Air-condition \ Kubota Facility Design
Interior\ Chiaki Arai Urban and Architecture Design
Landscape\ Chiaki Arai Urban and Architecture Design
