Archinect - News

Makoto Yamaguchi completes Tokyo gaming headquarters with slanting walls and video game metaphors

2024-04-17T11:43:00-04:00

Japanese practice Makoto Yamaguchi Design has completed a headquarters for a game production company in Tokyo inspired by video game elements.

Facing the site of an elevated railway where trains pass on average every 1.5 minutes in both directions, the scheme is defined by slanted walls in response to environmental elements such as light, wind, and sound.

Image credit: Koichi Torimura

Across the building, every slanted wall height is optimized according to the requirements of each floor. The third-floor walls, for example, are increased in height to prevent recording studios from being impacted by external noise. Meanwhile, the height of the slanted walls decreases as the scheme rises to open views of the surrounding city.

Image credit: Koichi Torimura

“The slanted walls protect the interior from the external gaze, making it impossible to tell what the building is for from the outside,” Yamaguchi explains. “Not being able to see the purpose is much the sa...

Sou Fujimoto shares new photos of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai master plan under construction

2024-04-01T15:46:00-04:00

Sou Fujimoto’s studio has shared new construction images of the forthcoming Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai's The Grand Roof circular wooden container structure, a year ahead of the start of the six-month fair, which begins on April 13th, 2025.

The enormous structure is 1,969 feet (600 meters) in diameter and will serve as the main circulatory route for the exhibition, which includes 161 total participating countries/locations.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sou Fujimoto (@sou_fujimoto)

Fujimoto’s team says their design is meant to evoke a sense of "Unity in Diversity" and takes the Stage of Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto and other historic examples of Japanese timber architecture as its inspiration.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sou Fujimoto (@sou_fujimoto)

It will support an aerial walkway that affords visitors sightlines into the arena-like layout encased on the manmade Yumeshima island below and divided into three zones (Pavi...

Seven defining projects by the 2024 Pritzker Prize winner Riken Yamamoto

2024-03-05T17:40:00-05:00

This morning’s announcement of Riken Yamamoto as the 53rd official laureate of the Pritzker Prize has come with praise for the Beijing-born Japanese designer whose community-minded approach to architecture has impacted countless lives. Many outside of Asia were surprised by his selection, which is being received as a win for rational design principles, relational aesthetics, and the democratization of architecture.

He is particularly well-known for placing emphasis on the boundaries and periphery spaces inherent in his designs, as well as for having an equal competency in transfusing landscapes within their natural environments and urban context. To date, completed works include projects in Japan, Switzerland, China, and the Republic of Korea.

“Yamamoto has expanded the toolbox of the profession towards both the past and the future to be able to give each time, in very different modes and at very different scales, the most pertinent response to the challenges of both the built envi...

Fluent in Japanese? Here’s a job opportunity to work on high-end retail projects for Japanese clientele

2024-02-28T12:48:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Design Research and Teaching Fellowship at Northeastern University, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Retail Architect with Japanese language skills at O’Neil Langan Architects.

The role, based in New York, calls for an individual to work on high-end retail projects “with an emphasis on Japanese clientele” with the firm therefore noting that “Fluency in Japanese is critical for this role.” Among the responsibilities for the role are project development from schematic design to construction in the retail sector.

Sephora flagship store by O'Neil Langan Architects. Image courtesy: O'Neil Langan Architects

Why the role interests us

The O’Neil Langan role’s emphasis on Japanese fluency offers us the opportunity to look back at some of the intriguing recently completed architecture projects in Japan to be profiled in our editorial. Last month, for example, we covered t...

Toyo Ito donates early-career archive to the Canadian Centre for Architecture

2023-12-06T17:21:00-05:00

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) has just announced its acquisition of architect Toyo Ito’s early-career archive.

The trove entails drawings, models, and sketches related to his practice Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects (founded as Urban Robot) from 1971 until 1989. The CCA says the donation will help researchers establish a better through line from the 2013 Pritzker Prize winner's early-career work in dialogue with its other archival holdings. The decision was made in September after 82-year-old Ito apparently determined he could not find an “appropriate place” in his home country in which to store the collection, according to The Yomiuri Shimbun.

In a press announcement, Ito said: “The CCA is an architectural museum and research center I have the utmost trust in. Upon this donation, I received requests from many Japanese architects and researchers, asking if it is possible to keep those archives in Japan. However, I have the confidence that CCA offers unparalleled ac...

A submerged Japanese library by Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP as a ‘tranquil place’ for reading and rest

2023-11-29T11:53:00-05:00

Japan-based Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP has offered a look inside their recently completed Library of the Earth. Situated in the Japanese city of Kisarazu, and completed in April 2022, the library is described by the firm as “the library for the farmers, plowing the fields on sunny days and reading books on rainy days.”

Image credit: Koji Fujii / TOREAL

Located in the corner of an active agricultural site, the scheme saw Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP transform a debris-laced plot into a “lush valley.” At the core of the project is a submerged library designed with the principle that “architecture should not occupy the cultivated soil layer but rather exist humbly under the flourishing of plants and microorganisms in the soil.”

Plan credit: Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP

Section credit: Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP

“The earth has been regarded as the source of all life and a symbol of motherhood,” the team explains. “Our wish was to make a small cleft in the earth and create a tr...

Atelier Bow-Wow’s first U.S. home features a large ‘umbrella’ roof in the Sierra Nevadas

2023-10-05T16:40:00-04:00

The acclaimed Japanese firm Atelier Bow-Wow has completed its first and only home built in the United States. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas in California, the Mountain House sits as a “meticulously designed and thoughtfully crafted residential structure” in sixty acres of forest, according to the property’s realtors, Sotheby's.

Image credit: Nick Swartzendruber for Sotheby’s International Realty

The home sits on the site of a 19th-century gold mine which features wagon roads, trails, and seasonal streams. For the building’s design, Atelier Bow-Wow pursued a philosophy that “honors the environment, manifesting in a structure that treads lightly on the land and resources while maximizing its connection to a breathtaking landscape.”

Image credit: Kat Alves for Sotheby's International Realty

The entrance-facing facade is designed to be unassuming a...

'A home for tea and life': Japanese and Ukrainian influences blend harmoniously in this Kyoto house renovation

2023-09-25T12:25:00-04:00

Ukraine-based MAKHNO Studio has completed work on a residence in Kyoto, Japan inspired by “sado,” a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. The century-old dwelling has been refurbished with attention to its history and the preservation of authentic elements while “adding a drop of Ukrainian color to the Japanese context.”

Image credit: Naoki Miyashita

The experience begins at the house's entrance, marked by a small tea garden named “roji.” Adorned with Japanese ritual stones and Ukrainian DIDO art sculptures from the MAKHNO workshop, the roji garden sets the tone for a tranquil visit, whose “good entities protect the house from sad thoughts and uninvited guests.”

Image credit: Naoki Miyashita

Upon entry through the “genkan,” or entrance hall, guests are greeted by a collection of Japanese and Ukrainian art. The main living area, segmented by a traditional Japanese screen known as “byobu,” serves multiple functions, showcasing art a...

MUJI converts 100-year-old Japanese house into tranquil Airbnb stay

2023-07-27T12:56:00-04:00

Iconic Japanese design retailer MUJI is back on the residential market with details of its new MUJI Base Kamogawa home renovation project for Airbnb.

Located an hour and thirty minutes outside Tokyo in Chiba Prefecture, the new temporary stay inside the 100-year-old former Noda Printmaking Workshop offers amenities for up to five guests aligned with a naturalistic Satoyama lifestyle concept.

Image courtesy MUJI/Airbnb

Of course, the whole scheme comes decked out entirely in MUJI products. The brand synergy extends all the way down to toothbrushes, cookware, and other home goods curated from the MUJI product line. For $152 a night, guests also have the choice between pre-packaged MUJI meals and the reasonably-priced home delivery of produce from local farmers. Seasonal tours of the nearby Takahashi Melon Farm are available as well.

Image courtesy MUJI/Airbnb

The brand says it will soon expand the BASE concept to other cities in Japan...

Kim Kardashian and Tadao Ando meet on Palm Springs dream home design

2023-04-07T16:38:00-04:00

Apparent Japanese architecture aficionado Kim Kardashian recently traveled to the country to meet with Pritzker winner Tadao Ando, according to an Instagram post made by the celebrity mogul Thursday.

Ando is designing a private residence for Kardashian in the Palm Springs area, the details of which were first uncovered by Vogue magazine last year. In her post, Kardashian implied its construction was set to break ground soon, though she was sparse on other design details aside from sharing what appears to be a rendering of a grey cast concrete structure that more closely resembles a contemporary art museum than a home.

Ando has designed several celebrity residences over the years, including a $75 million compound for fashion designer Tom Ford and the Malibu home currently owned by Kardashian’s troubled ex-husband following a $57.3 million post-divorce splurge. Kardashian is also reportedly in talks with Kengo Kuma for another vacation residence at an undisclosed American lakeside loc...

Junya Ishigami 'excavates' concrete cave for restaurant and residence in Japan

2022-09-23T13:56:00-04:00

Junya Ishigami + Associates has completed a residence and restaurant for a French restauranter in the city of Ube, Japan. Asked by the client for a space that "has to look as if it has been there and will continue to be there for the longest time," Ishigami responded with a cave-like structure punctured by three courtyards.

Photograph ©︎ YASHIRO PHOTO OFFICE

Photograph ©︎ junya.ishigami+associates

The scheme’s construction saw the site excavated to shape an inverse volume of the final design. Concrete was then poured in situ and the surrounding earth excavated further to reveal the final form. Finally, glazing was fixed to external threshold arches to form interior spaces.

Photograph ©︎ junya.ishigami+associates

Construction process diagram ©︎ junya.ishigami+associates

"When the structure was excavated after concrete solidification, it was caked with mud," Ishagimi recalls in a reflection for the Japanese magazine GA Houses translated by Fraze Craze. "With the range in geology, the natu...

Toshiko Mori on style

2022-03-25T18:29:00-04:00

My architectural hero is Lina Bo Bardi. She was an amazing person. She was connected to society, communities, and construction crews. And also the fact that she's originally Italian, and established an identity in a place different from her place of origin (Brazil), resonated for me coming from Japan and establishing my practice in the United States. Navigating that territory, not only being a woman, but being a migrant as well.

A very nuanced interview with Toshiko Mori. "The former Chair of Harvard's graduate architecture program deems signature style irrelevant, favoring a versatile research-based approach. Beyond the load bearing structures of a building, Mori's examination of material matter excavates the complexities and contradictions of modern human phenomena."

Kim Kardashian taps Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma for post-divorce vacation homes

2022-02-11T12:30:00-05:00

At present, Pritzker Prize–winning architect Tadao Ando is building Kim’s Palm Springs home, which she describes as “concrete, gray-toned, and really zen,” while Kengo Kuma, who designed the National Stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as well as LVMH’s Japan headquarters, is creating a glass-and-wood lake house for her in an undisclosed location, where Kim travels every Fourth of July.

The Palm Springs home and new Kuma design will offer some competition to the pricey portfolio her ex-husband has been building with his recent $57.3 million acquisition of an Ando-designed Malibu home that was custom-built for investment manager Richard Sachs in 2013.

Tadao Ando Interview with Archinect: 20 Minutes with a Master

Kardashian, who visited Ando's Chichu Art Museum in her past life with the Donda rapper, recently acquired ownership of the couple’s minimalist Hidden Hills home in the fall as part of the stipulation for their now-finalized divorce The Vogue cover girl credited the design process and collaboration with Axel Vervoodt with instigating a “love affair with architecture, specifically Japanese” as she spoke with the magazine’s Jen Wang about her SKIMS side hustle and new redefining role as the face of Balenciaga.

The Proust Questionnaire: Kengo Kuma

Sou Fujimoto Architects revitalizes centuries-old hotel in Maebashi

2021-04-30T17:56:00-04:00

A vacant hotel that had been in operation for 300 years until its closure in 2008 has been resurrected by Sou Fujimoto Architects.

Situated in the center of Maebashi, a city about two hours northwest of Tokyo, Shiroiya Hotel’s revamp is part of a wider rejuvenation of the city, a plan spearheaded by Maebashi native and businessman, Hitoshi Tanaka. He has been working to push the city in a more creative direction that is interesting and fun for young entrepreneurs. Aside from the hotel, Tanaka has helped develop one of Maebashi’s fading shopping streets by adding an acclaimed craft pasta shop and cake shop. He is also active in the city’s local politics.

Photo by Shinya Kigure

Tanaka bought the Shiroiya Hotel in 2014, and rather than demolishing the existing 1970s-era, concrete structure, he sought to revitalize the old hotel and make it a landmark destination for Maebashi. Having worked with Sou Fujimoto Architects in the past, Tanaka enlisted the group to bring his vision to life....

CASE-REAL designs a steel-clad minimalist house in Tokyo

2020-12-02T13:33:00-05:00

CASE-REAL has completed a new residence in Tokyo, Japan. The two-story wood-frame home sits in a residential sector in the city center and contrasts the surrounding structures with its metallic exterior, made of galvanized steel.

From the street, the home displays a gridded system of the galvanized panels leading its owners into an entry court behind a property boundary wall at the street-side sidewalk.

The ground-level includes the garage, storage, master bedroom, and a restroom. At the second level, living and dining, kitchen, an office, bedroom, and outdoor terrace make up the primary living areas.

Louvers of the same galvanized steel at the exterior cover the semi-outdoor terrace, creating an accessory space for dining and reflection. The interior tones are a minimalistic white and brown, coming from the natural wood throughout.

Hidden Noguchi ceiling found at a U-Haul St. Louis store

2020-08-06T15:52:00-04:00

An undulating lobby ceiling that Isamu Noguchi sculpted in the 1940s has emerged at a U-Haul branch in St. Louis, two decades after it was hidden by partitions and dropped ceiling panels. Noguchi designed the feature, known as a lunar landscape, for the building’s original owner, the American Stove Company.

The ceiling was discovered back in 2015 and immediately many began to advocate for its preservation. The New York Times reports David Conradsen, the St. Louis Museum of Art's decorative arts and design curator said that experts had contemplated removing the sculpture to transfer it to the museum, but concluded that it would be destroyed in the removal process.

Japanese design team create 'Cat Tower Mansion'

2020-07-14T11:40:00-04:00

The initial idea of residential construction firm Mitsubishi Estate Residence, the Cat Tower Mansion was realized by a team led by Japanese-based architect Akiko Ishimaru, who also happens to be a cat-lover. The multi-story structure is designed to exist within the interior of a home. The "ground floor" contains the bathroom, fit with a litter box for the cat, and every other level holds its own purpose. The second floor is a garden lounge; the third is the living room; and the top level is a soft sleeping space.

EYRC's Takashi Yanai and Patti Rhee unveil their Japanese and California Modernism-inspired family home

2020-04-16T11:52:00-04:00

Husband and wife duo, Takashi Yanai and Patti Rhee, both partners at EYRC, have unveiled their recently completed redesign of their family home, the Kingsland Residence. Takashi leads the residential studio at EYRC and Patti heads the commercial studio. The couple's home is located in Mar Vista, between Culver City and Venice, CA. Mixing both Californian and Japanese modernism, the design approach was to bring the outside in.

Photo by Stephen Schauer

Photos by Paul Vu

By painting the home matte black, more focus was brought to the exterior landscape and gardens, which were designed my Terremoto. Regarding the collaboration with Terremoto, Takashi said, "I wanted the exterior spaces to be a place of repose, and the focal point of your experience when indoors especially in the dining room. The landscape design is a mash-up of a Japanese garden with California appropriate plants." Inside the home, an expansive sliding door frames the backyard area, connecting the interior to the outdoor ...

Nendo-designed 'Stairway House' offers connected living for three generations

2020-04-06T12:15:00-04:00

Japanese-based firm Nendo has completed a novel three-story two-family home in Tokyo. With three generations of the same family sharing the space, the living quarters for the older couple is situated on the 1st floor, while the 2nd and 3rd levels house the younger couple and their child.

Spanning from the front yard ground level to the peak of the third floor is an expansive "stairway-like" structure that penetrates through the building. Offering separation with a degree of preserved connectedness.

Inside the stairway are usable spaces such as bathrooms and an actual usable staircase. Concrete was used for the exterior steps while steel makes up the interior steps.

The south elevation, which contains the protruding stairway, offers full-height glazing, allowing natural daylight into the home while further solidifying the continuous effect of the extruded steps.

Hyde + Hyde-designed residence embraces Japanese culture

2020-02-04T17:18:00-05:00

This Hyde + Hyde-designed home takes inspiration from its residents' Japanese culture. Called Utsuroi House, the dwelling captures an appreciation for timeless architecture through balance and geometric symmetry. 'Utsuroi' is a Japanese spatial concept meaning "a gradual and inevitable change from one state to another." This work of architecture seeks to introduce a "conscious and orchestrates spatial sequence" that guides its inhabitants fluidly through the home.

Elevation.

Concept sketch.

Sitting atop a high hill on the outskirts of the city of Bath, England, panoramic views of the cascading hills of the country surround the dwelling. With efficiency and low environmental impact in mine, the home will be constructed from prefabricated timber.

Approach view.

Rear deck.

Concept sketch.

This wooden house in Japan stretches 50 meters long

2020-01-27T11:57:00-05:00

Overlooking vast rice fields, scattered farmhouses, and mountains, sits a quaint wooden residence designed by Japan-based Motoki Ishikawa Architect & Associates Inc.. Located in Yokote, Japan, the design challenge came in addressing the area's dynamic climate where long winters invite heavy snowfall and short summers bring high humidity.

Working within a strict budget, the architects decided to construct the home in a linear fashion, dividing up the space based on the owner's programmatic needs. The garage, sunroom, and main residence, all occupy a space of the same width. Each area of the home is divided by a sunroom, allowing connectivity to the exterior and a buffer between living spaces.

Moreover, while considering the feasibility of construction, the design team composed the home’s columns and beams in identical dimensions with a goal of streamlining its production.

First photos of Kengo Kuma-designed Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Tokyo

2019-02-28T14:36:00-05:00

After announcing the launch of its Reserve Roastery in Tokyo back in 2016, Starbucks has now given a look inside the Kengo Kuma-designed space. The store is Starbucks’ fifth Reserve Roastery, and the second time that the concept has opened outside of North America, following the Milan location launched last year.

The four-story coffee temple in Tokyo's Nakameguro neighborhood opened to the caffeine-deprived morning crowds at 7 a.m. today.

"The Tokyo Roastery is the only Starbucks Roastery location designed in collaboration with a local architect from the ground up," explains the project description.

Image: Starbucks

"The exterior was brought to life in collaboration with renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. Envisioned by Liz Muller, Starbucks chief design officer and lead designer for all five Roasteries globally, the Roastery highlights the work of local craftsmen and women to create an enchanting destination for coffee exploration and discovery."

Image: Starbucks

"Upon entering the Roastery, customers are greeted by the world’s largest Starbucks Roastery coffee cask, four stories and more than 55 feet of blush-tinted copper adorned with hand-crafted copper cherry blossoms, which changes hues throughout the day in different lights. The expansive cask was built using the technique of tsuchi...

Plans for Burning Man's 2019 Japanese-inspired Temple design are revealed

2018-12-26T14:35:00-05:00

As the year comes to a close, the Burning Man Arts festival, one of the biggest events of the year, is already preparing for 2019. Designs for the temple, which is central to the black rock city experience, have been revealed.

Picked from a host of submissions for its "elegant simplicity", the 2019 Temple will feature a design inspired by the torii gates at the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Japan, where the artist, Geordie Van Der Bosch, previously lived.

Photo via Burning Man.

The temple will consist of a series of wooden archways that form a linear passageway leading to a large central hall. An altar and shelves to place offerings will help set the stage for festival-goes to have a collective and spiritual experience.

The design elicits "both a physical experience and a metaphorical journey," said the organizers in a statement on the design. "It’s a space that responds to the openness of the playa by creating a framework that encourages you to travel from end to end," they added.

Phot...

Dissolving architecture's binaries: Suppose Design Office

2018-09-18T14:25:00-04:00

Architecture, after all, dictates behavior: Public or private, indoor or outdoor, extravagant or humble, old or new, fake or real — these are a few of the obvious binaries by which we assess the spaces we inhabit. They are also the edges against which most architects hone their signature styles. [...] Tanijiri and Yoshida have instead devoted themselves to the liminal place where these elements break down; their designs [...] unite concepts that seem opposed.

Office in Imabari, Ehime, Japan, 2013, Suppose Design Office. Image via suppose.jp.

The NYT Style Magazine showcases the fascinating work of Japanese architects Suppose Design Office and their ongoing minimalist exploration of fluidity, porosity, and (in)completeness. "No matter how closely the architects listen to clients’ desires and plans to use the space," T Magazine editor Kurt Soller writes, "working with such a firm ultimately requires that the inhabitants leave much of that behind. Even its name, Suppose, dares them to question their own assumptions."

Blue Blanc, Aichi, Japan, 2011, Suppose Design Office. Image via suppose.jp.

Le Corbusier's influence on Japanese modernism

2018-08-09T15:31:00-04:00

Thanks to the overwhelming clarity of [Le Corbusier's] positions, the bewitching nature of his epigrammatic style and the already-powerful international movement for Modernism, the impact he had on a rising generation of Japanese architects would prove to be immense. But it would be the nature of that impact to be felt only in conditions of overwhelming ambivalence.

Nikil Saval traces Japan's modernism back to Le Corbusier citing influences on Kunio Maekawa and Kenzo Tange. Japan was the earliest country in all of East Asia to engage with Le Corbusier's work in the late 19th century, and by the 1930's many of his books has been translated into Japanese.

The piece navigates conflicting views in Japan with the introduction of modernism and the “Japan tradition debate”. Saval explores the struggle around a desire to embrace global modernity while also retaining a sense of tradition or “Japaneseness” in the culture.

Junya Ishigami: imagining other architectures

2018-04-04T13:52:00-04:00

Freed from the conventions of architecture and construction, what would this world look like? It’s a question Japanese architect Junya Ishigami has been trying to answer for the past decade, dreaming of structures that are as light as a cloud, as vast as the sky, as random as the trees in a forest or the stars in the sky.

Glass Pavilion, Park Groot Vijversburg, NL. Image: junya.ishigami+associates.

The Guardian's architecture critic, Oliver Wainwright, takes a closer at the fascinating work of Junya Ishigami, the bright new star on the Japanese architecture firmament, who is catching more and more mainstream attention with substantial commissions around the world. "[...] it’s tempting to close your eyes and fall under the spell of one of the most original minds in a generation – and be transported to a place where other architectures are possible," Wainwright writes.

Japan's disposable housing culture

2018-03-22T13:48:00-04:00

[...] the value of the average Japanese house depreciates to zero in 22 years. (It is calculated separately from the land, which is more likely to hold its value.) Most are knocked down and rebuilt. Sales of new homes far outstrip those of used ones, which usually change hands in the expectation that they will be demolished and replaced. In America and Europe second-hand houses accounted for 90% of sales and new-builds for 10% in 2017. In Japan the proportions are the other way around.

The Economist article describes Japan’s throwaway housing culture as a phenomenon that is not only a burden on the national economy and the environment but also does not see renovation and refurbishment of existing structures as an appreciation in value.

There are exceptions of course: one rare example of an upgraded old structure is this Kyoto guest house makeover by B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio, published on Archinect earlier this month.

Blending Japanese traditional and modern architecture, this Kyoto guest house is a quiet stunner

2018-03-02T19:14:00-05:00

Tucked away in the dense network of narrow streets in Kyoto's central Gojo Karasuma district, an old house has come back to life and—after a thorough, yet thoughtful, makeover—enjoys now a refreshed existence as a boutique guest house for tourists visiting the area.

In charge of the redesign was B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio, a young Japanese practice founded in 2014 by Yoko Fujii and Shuhei Aoyama in Beijing. An emphasis on structure, materiality, and light can be traced throughout B.L.U.E.'s work, primarily in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and increasingly in other Chinese cities.

Project description from the architects: "Located at Gojo Karasuma, Kyoto, the original house has more than 100 years history. It is a traditional timber-structure house in typical form of Kyoto house, and the main skeleton remains in good condition except for some random later rebuilt. The owner intended to transform it into a unique boutique homestay."

"T...

Kengo Kuma wants to change the definition of architecture

2018-02-15T17:31:00-05:00

Rejecting flashy forms in favor of buildings in harmony with their environment, the architect — poised to become world famous for his stadium for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo — is trying to reinvent his entire trade. [...] Kuma, a constant source of paradoxes and ironies, often makes demagogic statements on behalf of his own brand of architectural modesty. “I want to change the definition of architecture,” he told me; in a way, he already has.

Nikil Saval pens a beautiful profile of Kengo Kuma for T Magazine and investigates the architect's ongoing quest to ground his version of Modernism in authentic Japanese craftsmanship.

Excavate the hidden architecture models inside these unique note pads

2018-01-16T13:32:00-05:00

The Omoshiro Block is a note pad that unveils itself as it gets used revealing an architecture miniature hidden inside. Using laser-cutting technology, what appears as a regular cube of paper note cards eventually turns into an intricate miniature model.

These unique note pads are designed by Japanese architecture model company Triad. The blocks feature various notable architectural sites of Japan such as Kyoto’s Kiyomizudera Temple, Tokyo’s Asakusa Temple and Tokyo Tower.

Triad's noteworthy miniatures aren't cheap and can be hard to aquire. Ranging from about 4000 yen to 10,000 yen they are currently only available at the Tokyu Hands Osaka location, however you can stay up to date by following the company's Instagram account.