SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE Building in a Social Context
Frame Publishers, Amsterdam
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Introduction
Suppose Design Office was established in 2000 as an architectural design and planning office, under the leadership of Makoto Tanijiri and Ai Yoshida. With offices in Hiroshima and Tokyo, Japan, our studio produces work that is wide-ranging in scope, and includes residential dwellings, commercial interiors, presentation venues, landscape and product design, and art installations. At the time of this writing the studio is working on roughly 100 concurrent projects both in and outside Japan, from interiors to residences, to mixed-use complexes. Over the span of its operation it has completed well in excess of 100 residences alone. We’ve had the opportunity to participate in numerous projects and activities from among the countless number we’ve explored, and through our process of investigation we’ve seen the gap that divides our conceptual visualization of projects from their realized forms steadily diminish. Beyond this, however, what we continue to strive for is the actualization, through the work, of values in architecture yet unseen. It is no longer solely a matter of answering every question posed, but questioning the very question, starting from
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zero, from the point before zero. The work mustn’t be viewed only as an element of architecture. What we want from a future architecture is that these considerations find their material forms in the fundamentals that blend to compose society, human interaction, thought, and history. We choose to call this Ur-Architecture: Ur-Architecture is architecture’s archetype; it approaches the original human impulse to build. It is a prototype of design, the view from a place before design fragmented into a world of specialized styles and genres. Ur-Architecture takes the form of nature; it speaks in the language that binds humanity to nature, and in that way, becomes architecture comprehensible to all. Ur-Architecture is architecture’s future. Imagination unhindered, architecture that can be, will be. It is diverse, it is constant change, it is the future.
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Contents
Introduction
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Hiroshima Office Tokyo Office
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Suppose Keywords Without Borders Thinking Naming In the Middle Blank Flexibility Origins Discovery The Future
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Selected Works Public Residential Interior Exhibition Proposed
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Contributions Toyo Ito / Architect Masamichi Katayama / Designer agnès b. / Designer Zenta Nishida / Publisher Cathelijne Nuijsink / Journalist Suppose Aspects Think Projects Food Hotel Zekkei Fudosan / Vantage Point Properties
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Our Story
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Profile
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Project Index
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SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE HIROSHIMA
We currently maintain two offices, in Hiroshima and Tokyo, with a staff of 40 working on domestic and international projects at the time of this writing. Our Hiroshima office is a studio space in an old warehouse-type building.
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SUPPOSE Keywords
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Without Borders
Architecture and interior design are separate categories in Japan. Even the universe of architecture itself is divided between the architectural studios and large-scale building organizations. The architectural studios concentrate intensively on design, but tend not to be adept at huge development projects. Conversely, the big builders excel at major planning projects but we don’t necessarily look to them first for creativity in architectural design. In the current state of things, is it impossible to accomplish large-scale planning projects grounded in creativity? Must it be black and white, or is there a grey? Instead of being either, can we be in-between? From a rational point of view, when organizing a large planning firm, it may prove optimal to differentiate the functions of, for example, the person in charge of designing the house and the one designing the interior. But Suppose Design Office doesn’t assign areas of specialization. Because what we’re seeking is a sort of “chemical reaction”, we don’t pursue efficiency as much as hand out challenges. Each time an individual encounters something new there’s the possibility that the combination of person and challenge will produce unexpected results. In terms of everyday office activities, we work according to a team system, but for things like competitions, everything gets mixed up. “Dream teams” gradually begin to cohere in preparation for “battle”.
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For example, on the Onomichi U2 project, apart from the building architecture we managed a range of areas including the interiors, the menus, hotel and restaurant logos, uniforms, and so on. We possess the strengths needed for a consistent approach across all aspects of architectural design. “Nice mismatches” is the shorthand we use to talk about the pleasure we take in combining totally “wrong” things. In food and in fashion, these kinds of unexpected encounters delight us. In architecture, unlike food and fashion, “trial and error” is not an option. Yet precisely because our office is engaged in such a wide variety of functions, we experience all kinds of unexpected chemical reactions of the best sort. As a consequence, the work we produce assumes numerous forms. Because the output doesn’t equal only the thoughts and experiences of its creative principals, but includes input from all staff and even clients, there are even greater opportunities for chemical reactions – nice mismatches – to occur. Working from this standard, we feel, enables us to cross the margins of specialization.
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Thinking
As architects, we don’t see ourselves as very “architect-like”. In the current of architecture, we don’t align with the elite, the “thoroughbreds”. We are, to put it bluntly, the odds and ends. Status notwithstanding, there is thought, there is effort. And when thought is sufficiently brought to bear, in situations where we find ourselves head-to-head with those identified as the elite, we find that the effort takes us to the same place. On the other hand, it’s possible that thinking encompasses everything we’re best at. Because the corps of elite in the world is always going to be overwhelmed by the vast army of “other-thans”, society at large tends to identify with the latter, and sympathize, particularly when they, by virtue of personal character, manage somehow to find their way. In our Japanese movies and anime, we always cheer when the misfit emerges victorious. That’s why we have no doubt whatever that what we’re doing transmits to society a more vivid sense of delight in architecture than architecture’s mainstream ever could, and thereby gives society more reason to identify with it. As we realized we’d never join architecture’s mainstream, the instinct for self-affirmation caused us to place inordinate interest in forming a subculture. We were late bloomers. We started out doing a lot of jobs with daunting budgets. The site conditions were abysmal. Yet every inhospitable circumstance advanced our knowledge. Rather than seeking
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conditions that all agree are desirable, ferreting out the innate desirability of undesirable conditions became our credo, and over time we came to recognize that this had powerful significance for society. When asked about this, the founder of Suppose, Makoto Tanijiri, often talks about basketball. He was way too short for it, and consequently wasn’t very good, but nevertheless persisted, because it was something he really wanted to do. In basketball, there exists a point one can shoot from called the three-point line. Any closer and the basket’s only worth two points, but of course it’s somewhat easier, especially if one is tall, and so that’s where most of the action takes place, and defense is built mainly around it. The problem is that if you shoot from the three-point line you draw the attention of the opposing team, and anytime Tanijiri would get in the game he’d disrupt the normal defensive strategy. So he practiced for hours on end, in solitary, shooting from one meter beyond the three-point line. Scoring from there is proportionally more difficult, but no one expects it, and consequently, there is no attempt to defend against you. The lesson: create your own line that no one can see. It may deny the advantage of being closer to the goal, but grants the advantage of letting you work unnoticed. It’s the same in architecture. At this point, one meter back is a very comfortable place for us to be looking at the field from.
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Selected Works
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Public Residential Interior Exhibition Proposed
New Acton Nishi
New Acton Nishi Completion: 2014 Location: Canberra, Australia Project type: Building complex Site area: 4,800 m2 Gross floor area: 56,500 m2 Building area: 4,800 m2 Structure: Reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete Storeys: Office, 10 storeys; Residential, 14 storeys; Hotel, 4 storeys Developer and creative direction: Molonglo Group Design team: Fender Katsalidis Architects, Oculus Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, March Studio, Craig Tan Architects, Don Cameron, Ken Neale, Broached Commissions, Design Office Environmental and services design: Arup General contractors: PLY Nikias Diamond, Nishi Residential Building
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The Canberra building complex in Australia comprises 220 homes on 14 residential floors, a 10-storey office facility, and three low-rise, four-storey commercial zones, including a hotel and movie theater. The faรงade and interior was the collaborative effort of a large number of designers and architects. It was a project so diverse in its purposes that in the end it could be likened to a small city in itself.
New Acton Nishi
This building complex in Australia’s capital city of Canberra consists of residential apartments, offices, a hotel, restaurant, cinema and other facilities. Concern for effective use of small spaces prompted the search for a Japanese designer. We were selected specifically in light of our flexibility and diversity of approach. The original plan called for us to concentrate only on the interior, but the internal illumination inevitably involves considering the size and shape of the aperture through which light enters. Thinking about the exterior while concurrently designing the interior, it’s only natural that suggestions and proposals would arise from all quarters, and out of these, we would envision a formal totality. Having a lake in plain view of the site, a certain natural layout took form. Architecture always involves a budgeting strategy, and while the building’s outward look is simple as can be, capturing the sun requires that it be articulated in varied ways. Thus, an architecture hewing closely to nature was appropriate. Applying the same strategy for light infiltration through each balcony across the regular pattern of the façade, the result took on an organic shape. In dealing with issues of radiant heat and wind, applying synthetic processes to approach nature, an environmentally-conscious architecture emerged. The Molonglo Group, as developer and creative director, purposefully orchestrated a chaotic collaboration and planning process amongst the multiple large-scale institutions, local artists and designers. A policy of not aligning with any one office, but receiving and blending myriad points of view could be difficult and lead to consequences that were not always to everyone’s liking. But an unexpected, almost chemical reaction occurred that we believe expanded the possibilities of the architecture. This project called on us to drive the initiative in coordinating the efforts of all, triggering thinking that would give rise to an entirely new architecture. Building with an ear to society, and within that, generating an original architecture; our entire methodology stems from this fundamental idea.
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Mazda Showroom in MEGURO HIMONYA
Mazda Showroom in MEGURO HIMONYA Completion: 2014 Location: Meguro-ku, Tokyo Project type: Showroom Site area: 922 m2 Gross floor area: 1517 m2 Building area: 546 m2 Structure: Steel frame and reinforced concrete Storeys: 3 storeys (including basement) Structural engineering: Arup Japan Facility design: Arup Japan Faรงade engineering: Arup Japan Furniture design: E&Y Plant design: SOLSO Signage: SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE General contractor: Fujita
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Turning an ungainly site’s demands to its advantage. We were given a very irregular site alongside a main thoroughfare in the Meguro district of Tokyo to work with. Added to its difficulties, there were strict height requirements. These are usually the conditions we encounter when building in urban settings, so we’re inclined to regard these human-made impediments in the same way we do natural environmental limitations. The site’s geometry, as well as local legal ordinances, are factors in that ecology, and in the end, shouldn’t all architecture strive to coexist within the dictates of its surroundings? To draw a very wide range of visitors we began by configuring the unusually-shaped structure to present its broadest view to the main line of traffic. The building puts the sleek, contemporary image associated with the Mazda brand on display. Inside, we offset the sharpness of that image, expressed through smooth flowing lines and black glass, with the warmth and gentleness of wood wherever appropriate. A similar contrast carried over to the building’s interior functions. What visitors see upon entry may depend on their level of interest in purchasing a car; those intent upon the latter may focus on the showroom display, while others who are in an earlier stage of their consideration will immediately view it in the light of a welcoming café, a place to relax, think and converse. The repair garage on the lower level has a dry, clean space distinct from the workshop, and in general, despite it’s being a basement area, has a bright, open and airy feel that contrasts with the typical image of a garage. Ultimately, we lose sight of the curious shape of the setting, the unusually clean garage, the incongruous feel of an intimate café next to the exuberance of a vibrant showroom, and hopefully, identify only an easy place to visit. We all bring our innate notions of newness, convenience and comfort to every aspect of life. Suppose maintains as a guiding principle that if the constraints of a building are regarded as opportunities, they can be elevated to advantages, and then become features of its delight.
Forest Loops
Forest Loops Completion: 2014 Location: Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Project type: Playground equipment Site area: 17,290 m2 Gross floor area: 250 m2 (Net area) Building area: 287 m2 Structure: Steel Structural engineering: Mitsuhiro Kanada General contractor: Okabe
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Who doesn’t have fond childhood memories of playing in nature? Hiking through the mountain brush to set up a fortress of sticks and stones, getting a bunch of Styrofoam cartons from the fish market and wading into the river to launch a flotilla; we learn to create in nature. Looking back upon it, could it be that the things that served no apparent purpose, that had no meaning to us, were beckoning for us to create with them? The stone wasn’t born to be a fortress, the carton not meant to be a ship. One senses that it’s out of the very meaninglessness of those things that a child creates their meaning.
tubular steel element corresponds to a 3,000-mm radial arc, and is seamlessly joined to the next element at an offset angle, to gather into a complex mass. The mass can be extended indefinitely, and there are plans to expand into the next site. We envision our architectural “trees” someday supporting cafés, libraries and other enclosures. As the architecture expands it settles into the environment, and like nature, will begin to become integral to it. I suspect that over time people will become attached to this work in the way they do buildings, as it becomes more a part of their life.
Forest Loops is a project meant to recall that early childhood experience. In Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture, a commercial park known as Nicoe commissioned a portion of their property to be developed for the enjoyment of the community, children and adults alike. We proposed the creation of a forest. Though we called it a forest, it was composed not of trees, but architecture. This thing that one could throw netting over to scale and call a “jungle gym”, and then set oneself down upon and call it “furniture”; this thing seen from afar as “art”; this thing that becomes what it is by the action of the user; this architecture is a thing that we called a “forest”.
Through its relationship with the people who use it, this architecture acquires purpose and meaning. It isn’t playground equipment, but when we’re climbing on it, how could it be anything else? It fills us with the excitement we felt as kids, when we discovered meaning in objects that we had no knowledge of. Even though it seems meaningless, it is a meaninglessness within which infinite possibility exists. It is meaningless in the way that stars in the night sky appear a disorderly mess, but connect certain lines between them and you recognize constellations. Our goal is meaningful architecture. Here we know, once again, a child’s purity of vision, unafraid of viewing objects detached from their meaning, yet filled with curiosity about them, and we believe it can serve as a guide.
Like an actual forest, where seeming outward chaos belies a fundamental order, this architecture conforms to an order that isn’t immediately evident. Each
Forest Loops
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Residential
House in Hibaru
House in Hibaru Completion: 2014 Location: Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Site area: 260 m2 Gross floor area: 112 m2 Building area: 105 m2 Structure: Steel frame and partly reinforced concrete Storeys: 2 storeys Structural engineering: Arup Japan General contractor: Wakasugi Construction
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House in Onomichi
House in Onomichi Completion: 2014 Location: Onomichi City, Hiroshima Site area: 408 m2 Gross floor area: 123 m2 Building area: 110 m2 Structure: Wood frame and partly steel frame Storeys: 2 storeys Structural engineering: NAWAKENJI-M Landscape: LANDSCAPE NIWATAN DESIGN + ARTISAN OFFICE General contractor: Taihougumi
Read the site, converse with nature. Viewing an architectural site can be compared to consulting a map before heading off on a journey. The site, like an enormous map, communicates both current surroundings and ultimate destination, perhaps offering, simultaneously, views at the micro and macro levels. In this case the site lies adjacent to a portion of the Seto Inland Sea that narrows to a river-like body, and the map shows an inlet downstream that curves gently before turning out to open water. We began by organizing the site at an angle to the water, so that exterior views would be defined by the widest points of the river’s curve, giving the impression of open sea. We thought it important that all lines of sight be felt as a continuous whole, and the design proceeded from these mandates. The rectangular lot is sandwiched between a heavily trafficked roadway and the waterfront. Five walls were erected at angles 60 degrees apart. We evaluated each of the resulting four spaces in terms of its relationship with the open water, and designed the roof structures we’d mount based upon those assessments. In one space, low-hanging eaves foster peaceful contemplation of the water’s surface. Elsewhere, a glass roof provides a picture window look at limitless sky; while another area offers a stunning sense of the openness of the sea. Varying the materials and angles of the roof structures gave the opportunity for a direct dialogue between the architecture of each space and the water. Architecture makes us conscious of our familiar surroundings, and fosters awareness of the slight things – the sound of the waves and the breezes above, the boats fleeting past and the creatures that live below. In summer, when construction was completed, Onomichi held its annual fireworks display on the water. It was like a gift from this place. Happenstance granted one more way the architecture could be used in the service of enjoying all beyond it. Another time, we watched the sun setting upon the sea at the very center of our field of view, and knew at that moment that the plan for this house had met its purpose. The reward of reading the site and constructing topography based on its imperatives is to allow a face-to-face conversation with nature. We look forward to continuing to build upon these objectives, map in hand.
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House in Yagi
House in Yagi Completion: 2012 Location: Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Site area: 156 m2 Gross floor area: 112 m2 Building area: 56 m2 Structure: Reinforced concrete Storeys: 2 storeys Structural engineering: Ohno JAPAN General contractor: Shinko Kensetsu
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Planning to build a home always begins with a visit to a client’s current one. This isn’t just to discuss the plan, but to glean, in some small way, what the householders’ values are, their view of life. A client who likes art may want walls to display it. A household that enjoys wine together may ask us to design an appealing terrace. This is how we generally gather ideas when building homes for clients, but we were to find this first meeting different from every other, starting at the very nameplate, and the post it was on. We would learn that almost all of the furniture in the house was inventively handmade by the husband, and that the family’s outlook on life, which infused the home, was brilliant. They taught us that though they didn’t take the easy route, they’d grown attached to a life they were reluctant to change. Here we were to reconsider the meaning of “finished”; whether something is finished when it leads to and reaches a point of completion, the common notion, or a more forward-looking idea that “finished” is an occurrence in itself, with completion being something that would always be advanced toward with the passage of time. Climbing to the top of a hill near the site we could see that by placing the home’s living area at that level we could guarantee a broad, compelling view. Thus, the house opens to a room of great height that is essentially an unfin-
ished enclosure of the outdoor area. The first floor is suspended, with sashes that allow it to be completely opened to the external structure, and the barest minimum of traditional finishing. The outdoor room that is the ground floor is geared to dining, napping, listening to music, working on one’s motorbike, and so on, with life outside imposing itself on all everyday activities. When the construction was finalized, the premises still included enormous amounts of open space. If the owners decide they need an additional room they can enclose a space on the open ground floor, or create a space through the positioning of sashes and windows. There is unhindered potential for development. The purpose of architecture may not be to narrow the scope of the future by enforcing finality, but open it to unending possibility, directed by individuals’ hopes and aspirations. Just as we found it is possible to build a home that brings the outside inside, including that quality of nature that makes it ever-changing. There is convenience, and there is its very opposite, but that inconvenience may be an act of being true to oneself. The residents sought to attend to their home as an extension of their care for their bodies, for themselves, for the things to which they’re devoted, and we hoped to be able to meet their standard. “Completeness in incompletion” is an idea that will track with us as we work toward a future architecture.
Interior
agnès b. Ginza Rue du Jour
agnès b. Ginza Rue du Jour Completion: 2015 Location: Chuo-ku, Tokyo Project type: Apparel retailer Gross floor area: 713 m2 Structural engineering: Masahiro Ikeda Stair room graphic: LeMoDuLeDeZeeR Plant design: SOLSO General contractor: Ishimaru
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KUSAMURA BOOKS APITA Shin Moriyama
KUSAMURA BOOKS APITA Shin Moriyama Completion: 2017 Location: Nagoya City, Aichi Project type: Bookstore, Café Gross floor area: 4,145 m2 General contractor: Bauhaus Maruei VI and Graphic design: Nippon Design Center, Kenya Hara+Hara Design institute Lighting design: Endo lighting Café design: Starbucks Coffee Japan Display furniture design: MARUZEN-YUSHODO Plant design: SOLSO
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Exhibition
Nature Factory
Nature Factory Completion: 2009 Location: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Gross floor area: 65 m2 Structure: Group of plumbing pipes General contractor: Eiko Kensetsu
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A temporary installation for the apparel retailer Diesel’s Aoyama, Tokyo flagship. Unlike most, this installation had the specific and narrow directive to be both viewable as a work of art in its own right, and incorporate the shop’s regular operation. We were guided by our interest in the period in which jeans, Diesel’s showcase product, came into being, and motivated to create a space revealing the way the values of an era can be reflected in the changing value of its products. Jeans were originally work clothing, and as such, went largely unseen. When, all at once, they were determined to represent the height of fashion, they were immediately viewed differently through the eyes of society. We chose to use PVC plumbing pipes for the “Nature Factory” to attempt a similar act of visually altering consciousness. Numerous pipes climb the walls in arrangements characteristic of their typical use and appearance; they rise until they plunge inward, converge, and descend in a pattern reminiscent of a mangrove forest consuming the entire space. It was cultivated in exactly the manner of a natural object, over time. The shade it provides is exactly like that in nature, but produced by artificially fabricated limbs pervading the space. Organic and synthetic live together here, forming between them a new chemistry. In the same way, commerce and art come to live together, as light darts through the limbs casting shadows across the fixtures, and illuminating the merchandise displayed amid the installation. If there is a message here that we wish to convey to society, it is that within genres and materials as disparate as plumbing and fashion, diversity is evenly met by common purpose.
Nature Factory
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Lucèste: TOSHIBA NEW LIGHTING/ Milan Salone 2010
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The exhibition’s name, Lucèste, is a contraction of the Italian words for light (luce) and heavenly (celèste). Beyond the entrance was an expansive, 270 m² anteroom that was darkened and quiet, and the floor lined with corrugated cardboard, which gave lightly underfoot. Its purpose was to provide an intermezzo, to alter the visitor’s mood on their way to a smaller, 70 m² room. The unarticulated, white walls of this cave-like chamber worked their way up to a large vault overhead, where a full-color LED display simulated endless, open sky, shifting in tone from dawn to dusk in a natural daily cycle.
Proposed
Guggenheim Helsinki
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Guggenheim Helsinki
Synthesizing nature is a constant in our work, and something we ponder daily. In the glacier-riven boulder-strewn southern area of Helsinki, Finland where this museum project was being proposed, dynamite is the standard method of excavating sites, leaving behind a landscape scattered with gravel and stones. It only made sense to build upon, and build with, what the land presented us. Just as the history of regional production and consumption is written in the language of cuisine, in architecture
we dream of building places out of the places they’re born. The relationship to space in the new understanding of art is expressed in immediate, situational, contextual terms, and this is a place where art can be studied in a natural setting that is, itself, materially and figuratively tied to nature. The architecture that we designate the art museum tends, in social experience, to grow into and become part of the local landscape, eventually turning into something that seems
to have always been there. We can only speculate, but we felt that these would be buildings in which that process would be accelerated, and we could only hope that they would find favor with visitors. Viewing the local architecture, we can think of the aged buildings that comprise the city not as architecture, but in sum, as the landscape of the place. This, in its own way, is landscape architecture.
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Contributions
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Architect
Toyo Ito
An architect unlike architects Makoto Tanijiri of Suppose Design Office is a different breed of architect. You’d probably have to call him an architect unlike architects. Architects fall into distinct categories, those that gear themselves toward public works and others that aim for commercial projects. Some architects base themselves in major cities like Tokyo and focus on building within and outside the country, others confine themselves to a provincial location, and steadfastly dedicate their efforts to its vernacular. But Tanijiri defies categorization. He can fairly be called a commercial architect, but the way he defines what he does often doesn’t sound “architectural”. I was invited to “Think”, one of the talks his studio regularly organizes, and found most of the audience
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composed of persons outside the field. It was explained that those conducting the talks are, in fact, themselves rarely architects. He is based in Hiroshima, but maintains an office in Tokyo, and doesn’t seem rigidly aligned with his hometown. I have the impression that the reason he doesn’t adhere firmly to architectural orthodoxy is that he refuses to regard architecture in a strictly architectural context. We see architecture students, early on, begin to adopt the “architect’s point of view”, leaning on concept and theory, without reference to the user’s perspective. By graduation they may be speaking in a conceptual language only meaningful to other architects. But Tanijiri couldn’t be further from that view. Always proceeding from the user’s viewpoint, because he fundamentally does not defer to architectural
precepts, rather to what is perceived directly. I’ve stayed several times at what could be considered Suppose Design Office’s signature work, Onomichi U2. It’s a complex comprising a restaurant, bar, café, shops, and lodging, built from a restored maritime warehouse, and it’s delightfully livable. The thoughtfulness and attention to detail is clearly felt by both staff members and the guests they serve. It’s a sophisticated atmosphere that must be the product of Suppose Design Office’s innately firm grasp of the current moment. I suspect that Japan’s architectural future will contain less of architects making statements about their singular aesthetic, and more occasions to build upon and repurpose structures and sites already standing. In that respect, Makoto Tanijiri is leading the charge into the next generation of architecture.
SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE Building in a Social Context Publisher Frame Publishers Authors SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE with David G. Imber and Mika Yoshida Editor Rie Nishikawa Art Direction and Graphic Design Fumikazu Ohara (SOUP DESIGN) Production Sarah de Boer Proof reading Sarah de Boer and Lucie Ulrich Prepress Edward de Nijs Trade distribution USA and Canada Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, LLC. 34 Thirteenth Avenue NE, Suite 101, Minneapolis, MN 55413-1007 United States T +1 612 746 2600 T +1 800 283 3572 (orders) F +1 612 746 2606 Trade distribution Benelux Frame Publishers Laan der Hesperiden 68 1076 DX Amsterdam the Netherlands distribution@frameweb.com frameweb.com Trade distribution rest of world Thames & Hudson Ltd 181A High Holborn London WC1V 7QX United Kingdom T +44 20 7845 5000 F +44 20 7845 5050 ISBN: 978-94-92311-15-3 © 2017 Frame Publishers, Amsterdam, 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy or any storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, Frame Publishers does not under any circumstances accept responsibility for errors or omissions. Any mistakes or inaccuracies will be corrected in case of subsequent editions upon notification to the publisher. Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF Printed in Poland 987654321
Photography Toshiyuki Yano Tetsuya Ito Tom Roe (Cover, 050-057) Tetsuya Ito / by courtesy of DISCOVERLINK Setouchi (072-073) Shinkenchiku-sha (084-085) GA photographers (116-117, 136-137) Techni Staff (118-123) Toshiyuki Yano / Nacása & Partners (162-166, 174-178) Takumi Ota (228-233) Shingo Wakagi (274) Aiko Nakano (276-277) More Works (278-296) Do Do / At.5 PHOTO STUDIO Eiichi Kano Hisaya Katagami Kaori Ichikawa Katsu Tanaka Kenji Masunaga Khoo Guo Jie Masahito Kawai / Capsule Nacása & Partners Nobumichi Asai Seishiro Otake Takashi Sekiguchi / amana photographers, ©HOUSE VISION Takumi Ota Techni Staff Tetsuya Ito Tom Roe Toshiyuki Yano Toshiyuki Yano / Nacása & Partners Uedoi Camera
SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE was established in 2000 as an architectural design and planning studio, under the leadership of Makoto Tanijiri and Ai Yoshida. With offices in Hiroshima and Tokyo, Japan, it has completed hundreds of projects, ranging in scope from residential dwellings to commercial interiors, presentation venues, landscape and product design, and art installations. This book examines 30 selected projects.
“We want to create things that are unprecedented in the world, to formulate new ways of working, new ways of building, new services, new structures; in short, we seek to be a company devoted to the goal of bringing about the new.� Makoto Tanijiri and Ai Yoshida