This is an award-winning project designed by Ryumei Fujiki and Yukiko Sato who are famous for "Aqua-scape" and "Artificial Topography". It has been granted The Silver A' Design Award Winner for Arts, Crafts and Ready-Made Design Category in 2018-2019 (Italy).

BREATHING ARCHITECTURE LIKE A LIVING-THING (Summary)

This temporary art work is a nested structure with a two-tatami space embedded in ten-foot square hut. The use is a Japanese traditional tearoom. We constructed it by ourselves. 

It was exhibited in Echigo-tsumari Art Triennale 2018 in Japan. In this exhibition, architects were asked to respond to the theme of how to overcome the concept of homogeneous space which was dominant in the 20th century. It is a distorted homogeneous space to create irregularities by the random pattern of the skeleton and proposed an art-tecture (architecture) with many holes which are open and close as necessary to communicate with the outside like living things.

EXHIBITION

This work was exhibited in "Hojoki Shiki in 2018: The Universe of Ten Foot Square Huts by Architects and Artists" as a special exhibition during from July 29th to September 17th in Echigo-tsumari Art Triennale 2018, Niigata Pref. in Japan.

In the present day, the global Financial capitalism has an impact on all regions, which have been required to accept the improved efficiency, rationalization and homogenization. This exhibition was an opportunity for the architects and artists to present their own Hojoki Shiki, proposing different "hojo", the minimum model of Japanese architecture.

Inspired by Hojoki ("An Account of My Hut"), written in the Middle Ages, to survive in our troubled times, about thirty groups of architects and artists selected through the open call (Jury: Hiroshi Hara, Ryue Nishizawa, Fram Kitagawa) exhibited their "hojo" (ten-foot square hut) which represented their worldviews.

In this exhibition, architects were especially asked to respond to the theme of how to overcome the concept of homogeneous space which was dominant in the 20th century.

INTERACTION:

As you enter inside, this art-tecture (architecture) feels you and begins to breathe like a living thing.

Specifically to say, many holes called BREATHING PLEATS start opening and closing according to the movement of people.

GEOMETRY

Towards the generation of "heterogeneous space", we studied from a point of geometrical viewpoint.

Homogeneous space is geometrically equivalent to 3D Euclidean space. The biggest problem of homogeneous space is that our imagination is captured by it, but in order to overcome this, it is necessary to extend the concept of homogeneous space rather than deny it. Just as Einstein discovered, it is important to introduce a structure that "space is distorted". 

It is a distorted homogeneous space to create irregularities using random patterns found in various shapes and phenomena in nature (VORONOI DIVISION). 

RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENT

Modern office building made in the 20th century was separated from the external environment by a closed curtain wall. Then, using the lighting and air conditioning equipment, it is idea to control so that all places are homogenous and constant environment artificially. However, we need enormous energy, which is a major factor of global environmental problems.

It is important not to block the external environment and the internal space, but to open and close as necessary, that is, to create a building responsive to the external environment. Then it was created a living-like architecture.

WORKSHOP AND TEA CEREMONY EXPERIENCE FOR CHILDREN

During the exhibition period, we held a workshop on how to make Japanese sweets for children.

And, the children had a tea ceremony experience where they entertained their parents with Japanese sweets made by themselves in Porous Manifold.

REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY

It is made of a hybrid of spruce CLT panels and plastic materials processed using digital fabrication technology. 

SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES

Width, Depth and Height are 2730mm each. This dimension was called a "Jo" in the old words in Japan.

DESIGN TEAM

ARCHITECT: Ryumei Fujiki, Yukiko Sato

DESIGN FIRM: F.A.D.S + Fujiki Studio, KOU::ARC

TEAM MEMBERS: 

Yu Ohno

Seiya Ueki

Kento Watanabe

Yuta Kimura

Shun Takimoto

IMAGE CREDITS:

Masahiro Hoshida, 

Fujiki Studio, KOU::ARC