Contemporary Timber Constructions in Japan

The project faces the topic of working on the historical and multilayered urban fabric of Shirakawa-cho (Gifu Prefecture, Japan).

Our project starts from a general investigation about the natural conditions of the village, such as the weather, winds direction and the best orientation possible, elaborating, in the end, a general plan of functions that considers all these aspects.

The resulting system provides the improvement of production, education, and tourism. The supergroup program called “ShirakaWAcampus+”. After this first phase, the supergroup developed three different kind of structure, each one dealing with a different aspect planned in the general program: the results are nearly zero-energy building prototypes, all based on a timber structure, that meld traditional shapes and contemporary techniques in unique green architectures.

Key words: timber; tradition; innovation; passivhaus; technology; scale; education.

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