Architect Junya Ishigami created partitions with assorted curving shapes for the cloud-inspired interior of this nursery, found within a higher-rise in Atsugi, Japan (images by Edmund Sumner + slideshow).
Ishigami – a Tokyo-based architect known for his minimal approach – sought to recreate the feeling of strolling in the clouds with his style for the Cloud Garden day care and kid assistance centre.
“I like to search at the clouds,” explained Ishigami. “Clouds modify their kind at will, with a particular rationality. Furthermore, they are all white and fluffy, obtaining both a sense of unity and some consistency. And they are huge.”
“I have been pondering recently about whether or not it is possible to think of architecture in such an atmosphere,” he added.
The brief for the venture was to transform the seventh floor of a 13-storey block originally developed as offices.
The two,200-square-metre room was formerly a cafeteria, so the mechanical and electrical providers have been all exposed overhead. There were also a series of bulky concrete columns dividing up the floor.
Ishigami felt that incorporating cloud-like types would make the room seem more welcoming to youngsters, even though also referencing its elevated spot.
Relevant story: Junya Ishigami and Tracey Emin style new public art for Sydney
He and his group designed a series of curved partitions, each and every a single various, to slot in between the existing columns. Archways are formed along the underside of these, generating routes between spaces, while openings increased up allow light to pass among rooms.
“We created the whole space with gentleness as if drawing a sketch in the air, flexibly accepting the presence of sudden beams and piping protruding out of the floor,” explained Ishigami.
“Lightly dividing the area with the roundness of the soft cloud-shaped wall gives it the required functions and ambiance, creating a playground at the exact same time.”
As the cloud shapes run the two across and along the area, different apertures overlap to create framed viewpoints at different points around the interior. Some of the walls also function as screens that conceal technical equipment.
“A mysterious area that changes itself dependent on the location is designed via the multilayered tangling of many architectural components,” mentioned the architect.
“There are crevices that only kids can pass by means of, and absent spaces that are considered huge even for grownups – it is a room that softly ties in various objects and scales.”
The walls have a cement mortar finish, offering a warmer tone than the grey concrete of the exposed ceiling slab and columns, while the floor surface is wooden.
Junya Ishigami’s ideal acknowledged tasks incorporate the Kait Workshop at the Kanagawa Institute of Technologies and his Golden Lion-winning installation in the Japanese Pavilion at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Existing tasks include a cloud-like building for Copenhagen harbour and a mountain-inspired ferry terminal for a Taiwanese island.
Photography is by Edmund Sumner.
Undertaking credits:
Client: Atsugi City
Design: Junya Ishigami + Associates – Junya Ishigami, Kei Sato, Taeko Abe, Shuma Tei
Construction: Jun Sato Structural Engineers
