Muji House - Thesis Prep 793a Amanda Brown

MUJI HOUSE

ARCH 793a ARCHITECTURAL DIRECTED DESIGN RESEARCH USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE FALL 2016 THESIS ADVISOR: JOSE SANCHEZ AMANDA BROWN

CONTENTS

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DOCUMENTATION 11 WINDOW HOUSE 12 WOOD HOUSE 14 PLANS 16 EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC 20 SECTION 21 HISTORY 23 MODULAR CONSTRUCTION IN JAPAN 24 JAPAN – A LAND OF CONTRADICTIONS? 24 TRADITIONAL JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE 26 THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MODULAR ARRANGEMENT OF SPACE AND PREFABRICATED CONSTRUCTION 27 PREFABRICATION 30 FLAT-PACK 30 WORK CITED 33

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INTRODUCTION 5 MUJI 6

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INTRODUCTION

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Fig. 1.1 Muji Logo. Fig. 1.2 Display inside of Muji’s largest and flagship store in the “stylish” Yurakucho, Tokyo, Japan. MUJI Yurakucho stocks every single MUJI product available on the market. Fig. 1.3 A full-scaled model of the MUJI house is on display in the spacious atrium on the second floor of the store. Customers can enter and explore the inside of the house, and can even purchase a house of their own (if land is owned in Japan, of course).

Fig. 1.4 Kuma’s original “Window House”, designed in 2008 with gabled roof, a 2008 Good Design Gold Award Winner. Fig. 1.5 “The House of Wood,”, also known as the “Wood House” or “Tree House”, a 2006 Good Design Gold Award Winner.

MUJI

Today, MUJI HOUSE offers two awardwinning models to choose from: The House of Wood (2006 Good Design Gold Award Winner) and the House of Windows (2008 Good Design Gold Award Winner).

THE BRAND

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Take the storage boxes. They come in a number of sizes and materials, but can be nested, and combined in myriad ways because they’re based on the same module. “Every product can stack together in a [proportionally] perfect shape,” she says. Moreover, you can be assured that the bins you buy today will fit with the ones you bought five years ago—the module will never change.

FROM PRODUCT DESIGN TO HOMES It was in 2000 that MUJI started considering the house. MUJI goods of that time had already come to serve products exceeding 5000 items.

MUJI House Co., Ltd., the Housing business of major parent corporation Ryohin Keikaku Group, approaches the house as a container for the home.

They propose a lifestyle based on the Muji concept of living in a Muji house, which is constructed in a way so that everyone feels safe and free, and which is durable.

Muji houses are designed by separating the building into two parts: a “skeleton” exterior, which is a very durable box, and the interior “infill”, which can be modified. These partitions can be easily moved, providing a way for families to change and rearrange their living space as freely as they want to change their attitudes toward lifestyle.

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Muji favors unfinished or natural materials—like rattan, linen, unbleached cotton, bare metal—and subdued colors. This limits the amount of processing on a single item, like painting or dyeing, because it reduces manufacturing costs, which transfers straight to the retail price—it’s not about a new back to basics trend, it’s about the bottom line. Muji views its products as daily essentials and for that to take hold with consumers, the items must be affordable. “To provide this level of price we remove the frills and color,” she says.

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Muji as a brand has had overwhelming success in the homegoods, apparel, and personal care industries, and as a result developed a “cult-following” with loyal customers in a growing, international market.

Good design is a major factor for Muji, as they are interested in the very basic idea of solving the “daily-life” problems. The recognition the brand has placed on providing functionality, affordability, and quality over fame, marketing hype, profit-driven prices, and status symbols is the root of their sucess.

He went on to outline other key phrases about the brand, that it’s Muji embodies products that are just the right size, made from just the right material, that are compact, and that reflect richness in having the bare minimum.

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The Muji house concept is a representation of various architectural ideologies such as prefabrication, modularization, and grid-based design, combined with the need for readily available housing in site-specific locations in Japan.

The brand itself is best characterized by being Functional, Elegant, Minimal, Economic.

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KENGO KUMA FOR MUJI

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“Kuma’s intentions and quality of work reflect the more limited economic climate of Post-Bubble Japan, where today there are other initiatives to promote similarly prudent and anonymous kinds of design. One example is the retail company Muji, which designs and sells its own growing number of brandless household and consumer goods. Muji’s impressive yet inexpensive products are characterized by a no-frills minimalist aesthetic that favors simplicity, functionality, and ecological production, as well

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as a no-brand marketing policy. The name is short for mujirushi ryóhin, which actually means “no brand quality goods.” The internationally renowned graphic designers Ikko Tanaka and Kenya Hara, along with interior designer Takashi Sugimoto, established the company in the early 1980s with the intention of blending traditional Japanese aesthetics with high-quality modern design. Kuma has worked with members of Muji on several occasions.

One of the most important results of this collaboration is Muji House, a prototype prefabricated residence.”

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Kengo Kuma designed for Muji with the intentions of maintaining a representational quality of minimalistic design that can be sized and “designed” to fit a range of family needs and spatial requirements. This kit-of-parts and orthogonal design has the potential for a new type of morphology in spaces that employ a new sense of flexibility and functional design.

Fig. 1.6 This 6 x 6 grid emphasizes the modular cabability of the site Fig. 1.7 This image represents the standard “plug-in” modules that are placed in each house

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DOCUMENTATION

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Fig. 2.1 Even though the size of the building is the same, depending on the way people live, the shape of the house they should have will change greatly. This Diagram shows two different “cases” of family types living in the same size house.

WINDOW HOUSE

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The Window House was designed by Kengo Kuma for Muji, Inc. in 2008. Kuma created a simple gabled home in which the windows could be adjusted and moved according to the Buyer’s wishes. This inevitably meant that the views could be tailored to fit whatever site is available.

Date of design/construction: 2008 Location: Japan Program: Single-family Residential

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Size: From 6.3 M to 9.1 M (Varies based on plot)

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BASIC SPECIFICATIONS OUTER WALL: Ceramic siding ROOF: Flat roof slate INSULATION: Double insulation construction method (outside clad + filling) SASH: Aluminum resin composite sash GLASS: Triple glass ENTRANCE DOOR: Aluminum entrance door ENTR TERRACE DOMA: Mortar gold iron finish INTERIOR: Pasting original cross FLOORING: Veneer pasted flooring KITCHEN: Kitchen with original wall (IH cooking heater) UNIT BUS: Original 1 pyeong type BATHROOM VANITY: Original vanity BASIN STORAGE: Mirror only TOILET: Hand wash with cleaning toilet seat LIGHTING EQUIPMENT: Porch light, blow-pendant light, down light INTERCOM: TV door POST: The window of the house original post (intercom-integrated) WATER HEATER: Gas

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Fig. 2.2 Even though the size of the building is the same, depending on the way people live, the shape of the house they should have will change greatly. This Diagram shows two different “cases” of family types living in the same size house.

WOOD HOUSE

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The “Wood House” by Muji is a one-room space with no partitions centered on the colonnade. Its construction makes it possible to create a spacious “one-room space” without being affected by walls and floor plans, by giving strength to the framework of the house itself. The exterior “box” created can be changed to a floor plan that you want to live freely with “infill” such as partitions and furniture.v

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Location: Japan Program: Single-family Residential

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Date of design/construction: 2004

Size: From 6.3 M to 9.1 M (Varies based on plot) Grid-based floor plans with an array of options depending on the area available to build, along with user preferences.

Houses are priced accordingly to size and plan type.

BASIC SPECIFICATIONS Siding body thickness 15 mm / Vertical tension / Laminated dual use / Polyester resin paint / [Fire protection] 30 min Fire protection structure compliant / [semi fire protection] 45 min Quasi fireproof structure compatible / Galbarium steel plate (55% aluminum - zinc alloy plated steel plate) perforated-red rust 10-year guarantee correspondence (except for the salt damage area) Silver metallic, Grand Bleu, moss green, black, you can choose from five colors of white.

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PLANS The plans are based off of a grid where each 1 x 1 module is measured as 1.82 square meters, and half-size modules are 0.91 M. The sites are measured and the dimensions determined which floorplan type it falls under. For example, the 3.5 x 5 base plan requires between 6.37 and 7.28 meters by 9.1 meters of buildable area.

Fig. 2.3 “Wood House - 4 x 4.5” 1st Floor Plan. Fig. 2.4 “Wood House - 4 x 4.5” 2nd Floor Plan.

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1ST FLOOR

2ND FLOOR 2.3

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Fig. 2.5 3 X 5.5 Floorplan. Fig. 2.6 3 X 6 Floorplan. Fig. 2.7 3.5 x 5 Floorplan. Fig. 2.8 3.5 x 5.5 Floorplan. Fig. 2.9 3.5 x 6 Floorplan.

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2ND FLOOR

CONSTRUCTION PRICE 1,608 YEN (1,737 YEN W/ TAX)

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1ST FLOOR

2ND FLOOR

1ST FLOOR

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1ST FLOOR

Various plans are pre-determined and designed based on the plot sizes and family “scenarios.” Below is an example of the range of the most “narrow” plans at 3 & 3.5 wide (which equates to 5.46 M & 6.37 M). An estimated construction price is also included with each plan type.

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2ND FLOOR

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CONSTRUCTION PRICE 1,692 YEN (1,828 YEN W/ TAX)

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1ST FLOOR

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1ST FLOOR

2ND FLOOR

2ND FLOOR

CONSTRUCTION PRICE 1,771 YEN (1,913 YEN W/ TAX)

CONSTRUCTION PRICE 1,650 YEN (1782 YEN W/ TAX)

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CONSTRUCTION PRICE 1,581 YEN (1,708 YEN W/ TAX)

EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC

Fig. 2.10 Exploded Axonometric Drawing. This drawing portrays the modular elements found in this 5 x 5 Muji base plan modeled below. The windows are customizable and site specific. The stair module is placed accordingly to this particular base plan, and the interioir wall partitions on the first floor help designate public and private spaces (living and bathroom modules).

Fig. 2.11 Section Drawing A

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SECTION

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HISTORY

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MODULAR CONSTRUCTION IN JAPAN

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Factories are highly automated and use an array of standardised components.

The marketing of modular housing in Japan is based on a high degree of user choice in the layout and fitments in the modules, and a fast design, manufacture, and installation turnaround. A house can be installed and finished in only 6 days, and therefore this is attractive in areas of Japan where land prices are very high.

In Japanese systems, the modules are relatively small at 2.4 m wide and 3.6 to 5.4 m long, and are often built with open sides. Up to 12 modules make one large 2-storey family house. The modules often use a welded frame consisting of 100 mm steel box sections and 200 mm deep edge beams. Modules are designed to be very resistant to earthquake effects, which is an important requirement in Japan. Cladding is often in the form of composite panels with pre-attached cladding or veneer in which the light steel profiles are embedded in the panel.

In the last 5 years, effort has gone into marketing zero utilities expense housing, and around 50,000 houses have been sold under this initiative.

Misawa and Toyota have announced a

JAPAN – A LAND OF CONTRADICTIONS? Followers of contemporary architecture in Japan are fascinated by its uncompromising concepts.

Nowhere else do we see innovative solutions so radically implemented, such tiny ground plans or uninhibited experimentation; and nowhere else are structures pared down so rigorously to the barest of essentials. Avant-garde architecture in this island nation is rich and diverse. It encompasses both Toyo Ito’s media architecture and the minimalist approach of Kazuyo Sejima, as well as the unconditional spatial and structural experiments of Shigeru Ban. Also under this umbrella is the sensory exploration of material as demonstrated by Kengo Kuma, and the quiet, meditative spaces of Tadao Ando. It was Tadao Ando, resolutely starting to tread his own path around 25 years ago, unswayed by the predominant fashions, who became the first Japanese architect to exercise a significant influence on architecture worldwide.

In the last ten years contemporary Japanese architecture has enjoyed its highest ever international acclaim.

Today a number of its practitioners are leading innovators in the world of architecture. Yet Japan’s architecture has always been slightly different to the international mainstream, as

tradition is an ever-present component in this country. On the other hand Japan has traditionally demonstrated great openness to influences from outside.

Just as in the past the Japanese adopted many aspects from the culture of China, often refining them in the process (Buddhism, for example, and temple-building techniques, the art of writing and the tea ceremony), and, after the Second World War, from the culture of Europe and America, in the shape of cameras, cars and electrical goods, so, too, they have also willingly accepted and assimilated architectural influences from outside.

A land of contradictions?

At first the Western observer in Japan is struck by contradictory impressions: aesthetically arranged food, a love of perfection in packaging and the tea ceremony on the one hand, set against the chaos of the cities, the teeming millions in the metropolises and the legendary discipline of the population.

But deeper understanding does not come from judging the country, or its architecture, on the basis of our own criteria for evaluation: The entirely different circumstances and culture in Japan require a different approach, a different interpretation. Even though the outward appearance of Japanese architecture may look familiar, he who judges it with the standards of the West is in danger of overvaluing the aesthetic aspects and thereby literally only scratching the surface. Specific values from Japanese culture still play a large part in its architecture,

while principles familiar to us have little weight. This is true also of the dogmas of the modern movement and functionalism (even though, very early on, the modern movement had great influence on architecture in Japan) which in our part of the world are still a key criterion, albeit one that is increasingly called into question: In the Far East, by contrast, these dogmas have little validity as a theoretical guideline.

Generally the Japanese take a very sceptical view of dogma. Even their religions – Shintoism and Buddhism – have a more practical orientation, and show great tolerance for other beliefs. Without an appreciation of traditional Japanese values, the Japanese relationship to simplicity and understanding of form, and how these differ from the West, there can be little real insight into today´s architecture in Japan. Again and again the key to understanding contemporary design lies in traditional values and attitudes. These explain a tendency towards contradiction and the love of all things natural or raw, and also the influence of the cyclical and the understanding of authenticity. The early tea masters, for example, with their teahouse and garden architecture, still have a strong influence on aesthetic sensibilities, and today we see all around evidence of an urge to break through the existing order, of a certain love of contradiction: straight paths in a garden are sure to have an arbitrary bend in them, and otherwise perfectly planned and built teahouses

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Modular construction is mainly used in Japan for 2- or 3-storey housing.

joint venture on zero emissions modular housing, which includes inbuilt solar thermal and photovoltaic (PV) panels.

More recently, Misawa has moved into modular social housing for rent.

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Modular housing has been widely used in Japan since the early 1970s, and at the peak of output in the early 2000s, over 170,000 houses were sold per year, mainly to private purchasers.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MODULAR ARRANGEMENT OF SPACE AND PREFABRICATED CONSTRUCTION

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TRADITIONAL JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE The characteristic features of traditional Japanese architecture that • are evident in all phases of history are, briefly: •

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Floors that are raised one or two feet above the ground, enough to protect against ground moisture and give good air-circulation in this hot, damp climate, while remaining in contact with the earth.

• Wide, overhanging pitched roofs made of reed, shingles or tiles above the main building; around the perimeter a veranda, mostly under a separate roof, for protection

The Muromachi era lasted from 1336 to 1573. It was a time of civil war, murder and devastation of the towns. In the middle of the fifteenth century Kyoto was also destroyed. And yet it was during this period that the foundation stone for modern Japanese culture was laid, as it was at this time that the architecture, garden style and many new arts that we today feel to be typically Japanese first emerged. These include the tea ceremony, Noh theatre and a separate academy of Japanese painting.

In terms of architecture it was the • karesansui or dry gardens of the Zen temples and the treatment of space in Shoin buildings.

In the interiors, fully developed • Shoin architecture at the end of the sixteenth century showed a range of new spatial and decorative qualities that had originally developed independently of each other. Typical of a classical • Shoin room is the joza-no-ma , or literally ‘the room with the raised level.’

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Tsuke-shoin , a low wooden writing table, built into a niche with sliding windows and often projecting onto the veranda; amazingly this ‘study corner’ has lent its name, like a pars pro toto, to the whole of Muromachi architecture.

Tokonoma , a windowless niche, raised by one column’s width and often painted, in which a flower arrangement or scroll painting

was displayed, the most important decoration in the whole room.

Two elements contributed to the formation of this social and spiritual focus in the home: on the one hand the toko, a slightly raised floor as a status symbol, and the oshi-ita, a shelf on which to display valuable works of art.

Still today, even in the simplest house, the seating arrangement in relation to the tokonoma is of utmost importance.

Chigaedana , a windowless niche with overlapping shelves and drawers, a place to display valuable books and artistic utensils belonging to the tea ceremony.

Chodaigamae , painted, opaque wooden doors that enabled the master of the house easy access to the shoin from a room that was otherwise kept secret.

Fusuma and shoji, sliding doors with unpainted or painted surfaces, and grid-like wooden doors covered with translucent Japanese paper are now common but they were developed first in the Muromachi and Momoyama eras.

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Equally firmly anchored and now virtually proverbial is the influence of the cyclical on Japanese thought and action. The most striking example of this is perhaps the holy shrines • of Ise, which since the seventh century have at regular intervals been dismantled and rebuilt in the same form, but using new wood. In addition to illustrating constant change this example also reveals another inherent aspect (shared throughout almost all of Asia): The conceptual value of a building or an object is often more important than its historical value: the symbolic content of form and colour, • and religious significance predominate over age and authentic material.

against the sun and rain, insulation and light-modulation.

Empty rooms, i.e. rooms with no free-standing chairs, tables, cupboards or carpets; the entire floor area, laid with compressed rice straw mats, is the ‘chair’, as it were.

A horizontal, additive arrangement of space, almost always without an upper storey or a cellar; rooms are divided by means of movable panels and temporary installations, not solid walls. Watsuji described the traditional Japanese sense of space in their homes as a ‘bringing together without distance,’ as all partitions can be either removed entirely or shifted aside.

Perfection in detail and in building type. In Japan, up until the introduction of the North American timber frame, there were virtually no wooden buildings with badly fitting connections. The culture of an island people is oriented inwards and not outwards.

A clear distinction between load-bearing and space-dividing elements in the construction, which facilitates replacement or renovation of areas and components within the building.

This distinction also makes the structure easy to dismantle and reconstruct in another location.

Multifunctional use of the built space – a consequence of the limited amount of building land available on the Japanese islands.

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or farmhouses will have somewhere an unusually twisted beam, to break the illusion.

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Fig. 3.1 Construction details and standard sizes of the tatami

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It is these tatami, or compressed straw mats – nowadays synonymous with the floor itself – that since the Muromachi era have blended the entire room together into a single visually balanced unit, both in terms of modular arrangement and proportion.

which could facilitate prefabrication and connections. Finally a column spacing of 197 cm was agreed for the towns and 181 cm for the countryside.

In the classic kiwari system, which we know from the shomei carpenters manuscript of 1608, the size of the column cross-section, too, was fixed – at one tenth of the column spacing, or ken. With this all other dimensions and proportions in a building could be scaled up or down accordingly.

Of course, modifications to the size of tatamis also had a significant

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Social status was highlighted by raising the tatami floor by around 15 cm. In many shoins there was not only a jodan, a room of highest status, and a gedan , a room of lowest status, but also a chudan , a room of intermediate status. Other height gradations do not occur in traditional Japanese architecture.

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In Japanese domestic architecture there has long been an attempt with the kiwari system to achieve aesthetic proportions for all parts of a building.

Column spacings, prefabricated wooden components and the modular requirements of the tatami system all had to be carefully tuned to each other. The Japanese ken, or column spacing, changed not only with the continually changing Japanese system of measurement, but also with the search for standardised dimensions in timber

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In this modular system – called kiwari-jutsu in Japanese, which means literally a system of dividing wood – there was never an attempt to impose a single construction system on all buildings. There were five types of construction, each clearly separate: gateways, Shinto shrines, Buddhist monastery complexes, pagodas and houses.

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Fig. 3.2 + 3.3 Windows sizes differ and are site specific in Kuma’s original Window house, designed in 2008 with gabled roof. Fig. 3.4 Interor Shot of Window House.

Capturing light infiltration and minimalistic design, with seemingly frameless windows. Fig. 3.5 Interior Shot of Kitchen with Muji shelving module units for open cabinetry organization.

PREFABRICATION

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However, prefabrication is attractive under certain conditions, for example where a high concentration of housing must be erected quickly. Another reason for prefabrication in private housing construction can be attributed to the fixed-price policy of the house building companies, which is a high priority for the client. Practical application and mass customization are key goals of standardization, and standardization is essential to the production and choice of components. Components such as façade elements or windows and doors, and structural elements such as wooden beams and steel trusses are

FLAT-PACK Since 2004, the Japanese home and lifestyle company Muji has been offering ready-designed houses; one of the three available types was designed

by Kazuhiko Namba (20). The Muji Houses are marketed on the same platforms as the home furnishings. The “simple and good quality” principle of Muji and the do-it-yourself concept of IKEA both work well with the readydesigned (although not quite ready-made) principle of flat-pack home delivery.

In Japan as well as in Sweden, home of the IKEA BoKlok House, prefabricated housing accounts for 90 % of all housing, and the designs maintain the simplicity of traditional homes.

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Prefabrication is therefore a widely adopted practice in both the residential and non-residential sectors. Building family houses in suburban or rural areas usually does not involve the same space limitations as building on urban sites.

not only standardized in order to make industrial mass production feasible, but are also coordinated to ease construction and to allow alternatives in design.

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The advantages of prefabrication of building elements in a qualitycontrolled environment are substantial: the reduction of labor and construction time on the building site, the yearround optimum working conditions of the factory and the precision and overall better quality of the components. The higher costs due to transportation and limitations generally associated with prefabrication outweigh expensive site work, especially in urban areas. As prefabrication speeds up the production process significantly, it allows for earlier capital return, which is often meticulously calculated by large-scale property investors.

WORK CITED

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Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd. 2010 Annual Report. February 28, 2010. http://ryohinkeikaku.jp/balance/pdf/annualreport_2010_e.pdf DETAIL : Japan : Architecture, Constructions, Ambiances. München, CH: DETAIL, 2012.

Knaack, Ulrich, Chung-Klatte, Sharon, and Hasselbach, Reinhard. Birkhäuser Generalstandingorder : Prefabricated Systems : Principles of Construction.

Basel/Berlin/Boston, DE: Birkhäuser, 2012.

Measure and Construction of the Japanese House Heino Engel Tuttle Publishing, Apr 28, 2015

Budds, Diana. “‘Muji Is Not A Trend’: How Design Fuels Muji’s Growth.”

Co.Design. N.p., 17 Aug. 2015. Web. 06 Dec. 2016. <https://www.fastcodesign. com/3049774/muji-is-not-a-trend-how-design-fuels-mujis-growth>.

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Lester Goh, Lester. “Muji Yurakucho – Flagship Store - Tokyo - Japan Travel Tourism Guide, Japan Map and Trip Planner.” JapanTravel. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2016. <http://en.japantravel.com/tokyo/muji-yurakucho-flagship-store/21331>.

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“Window House | muji House.” muji. N. p., n. d. Web. 26 Sept. 2016. < http:// www.muji.net/ie/madonoie/>.

(Translated using Google Translate + Translate.com)