Future living by Rafael Carias

Future Living

Claudia Hildner

Future Living Collective Housing in Japan

BIRKHÃ&#x201E;USER | Basel

Introduction 6

About this Book: Architecture for Living Together by Claudia Hildner

Beyond Modernism by Evelyn Schulz

Collective Housing in Japan 28

Soshigaya House | Be-Fun Design + EANA

Tokyo Apartment | Sou Fujimoto Architects

Setagaya Cooperative House | Hitoshi Wakamatsu Architects

Yokohama Apartment | ON design & Partners

Nerima Apartment | Go Hasegawa & Associates

One-Roof Apartment | Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office

Share Yaraicho | Satoko Shinohara + Ayano Uchimura

Slide | Komada Architects’ Office

Apartment I | Office of Kumiko Inui

Yotsuya Tenera | Akira Koyama + Key Operation Inc.

M-apartment | Shinichirō Iwata Architect

NE apartment | Nakae Architects, Akiyoshi Takagi, Ohno Japan

Yuima-ru Nasu | + New Office

Trois | Mitsuhiko Satō Architects

Dancing Trees, Singing Birds | Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP Architects

104

12 Studiolo | CAt (C+A Tokyo)

110

Onagawa Container Temporary Housing | Shigeru Ban Architects (VAN)

114

Alley House | Be-Fun Design + TAS-S

120

Sakura Apartment | Hitoshi Wakamatsu Architects

124

Alp | Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office

130

Komatsunagi Terrace | Mitsuhiko Satō Architects

134

Shakujii Pleats | Makiko Tsukada Architects

140

Applause Azabu | Salhaus

146

Static Quarry | Ikimono Architects

150

Apartment in Kamitakada | Takeshi Yamagata Architects

156

Appendix

Claudia Hildner

About This Book Architecture for Living Together

Single-family homes are only rarely semipublic areas that are used jointly by residents who are initially unknown to one another. In the architecture of collective housing, however, the relationship of the individual to the community becomes an important theme. The integration into the urban or rural context also plays a different role in “large” houses than it does when designing a single residence. The blocks or ensembles that form the architecture of collective living cannot be as easily swallowed up by their environment as, say, an individual small house can: They crucially influence their environment and are like small cities within the city.

Farewell to Modernism With its focus on collective housing in Japan, this book can be regarded as a supplement to the publication Small Houses, 1 which was published by Birkhäuser in 2011 and approached Japanese residential architecture from the perspective of the typology of the single-family home. But why does it pay to investigate the universal topic of housing by focusing on a single country? Several acute social phenomena of industrialized nations are much more clearly pronounced in Japan than in other countries. Because of strict immigration policies, demographic change is progressing more rapidly there than elsewhere. At the same time, the structure of households is also transforming rapidly: Rather than in the three-generation families that were long common, more and more people are living alone today, not wanting children and/or unable to take care of their aging parents. The rifts opening up in many areas of society, not just in Japan, contrast with the circumstances that led to the global success of the Modern movement in the twentieth 6

A logo identifies the type of building for each project:

Multistory apartment building: Common entrance, including as a rule a shared central stairwell.

Row house: All units have a separate entrance on the ground floor; predominately multistory units/maisonettes.

Communal housing: As a rule, a common entrance on the ground floor; one room that fills an essential housing function and is used jointly.

Multifamily home: All units have a separate entrance; some are accessed via off-center steps.

Housing complex: Group of several buildings with separate entrances; at least one building used jointly.

century: rapid economic and population growth, faith in progress, and internationalization have given way to stagnation and a complicated battle against crises. At the same time, more and more people are thinking about local identity and are concerned with sustainable lifestyles. These processes of transformation are also shaping the young generation of Japanese architects, who have set out in search of an alternative to Modernism, of a new architectural utopia – a theme that connects them across different approaches and methods. Hence the title of this book, Future Living, does not refer to a vague future but instead describes a revolution in the present and thereby distinguishes itself from architecture that feels a debt to modern living. The projects presented reveal the structures and ideas that Japanese architects are using to overcome the functionalism that characterized last century’s residential architecture. Architects are certainly well aware of the extent of these revolutions: “The products of modern thinking – whether about architecture, agriculture, or other areas – are increasingly obviously bumping up against their limits; they are con fronted with the same problems with regard to the environment,” 2 observes Akihisa Hirata, for example. Ecological sustainability and energy efficiency are, however, generally interpreted differently in Japan than in many parts of the Western world. The idea of the short useful life has deep roots in a culture influenced by wood construction and ideas of religious purity and renovation, so that the longterm performance of the individual building is only rarely considered. But Japan also has advantages over most other industrialized nations in matters of sustainability: for example, the distinctly lower demand for floor space generally means low use of construction materials and energy. The overwhelming majority of the residential buildings presented in this book were not built on the initiative of large investors. They are primarily buildings belonging to private property owners with four to ten residential units. It was not, however, their scale that was the selection criterion for this publication; rather, smaller sizes seemed to be invitations to experiment. Whereas for large projects few developers will dare risk their planned profit by introducing new types of floor plans and structures, private clients clearly have the confidence to experiment more with their limited area and create exciting hybrids of single-family home and residential block. The adaptation of collective living to a changed society results “from below,” as it were, from small private projects that flourish thanks to the political and economic situation.

Dissolving and Reconnecting The scale of the projects presented here corresponds to the logic of large Japanese cities based on many small elements, which has been increasingly recognized 7

and encouraged by architects but also by politicians. For the International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2010, the architects Koh Kitayama, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, and Ryūe Nishizawa presented their concept of “Tokyo metabolizing,” 3 which defined Tokyo as a “city of houses” that is always reinventing itself by constantly renewing small architectural elements. According to this argument, the large Japanese city is essentially characterized by residential buildings. Conversely, in many current designs the context of the city also serves as inspiration, and so it is recognized in that way. The supposed chaos of individual buildings is distilled into structures that are adopted on a smaller scale and realized as new dwellings. An important role in this is played by the traditional residential areas of large Japanese cities, which are distinguished by, among other things, their lively lanes (roji) and their atmospheric density (on this, see Evelyn Schulz’s introduction, p. 11 ff.). In the Japanese Pavilion at the Biennale, the architects presented two finished residences on a 1:5 scale: Bow-Wow House and Studio, which combined the home and workplace of the husband-and-wife architects in one building, and Ryūe Nishizawa’s Moriyama House. This ensemble for seven occupants, created in 2005 for a client who was open to experimentation, is located typologically between a single-family home and a house share, between multistory apartment building and small housing development. The design conveys an idea of what the relationship of the individual to society could look like today and reveals the ambivalence between the desire for an individual lifestyle and the search for identity. The ensemble has been understood both in Japan and abroad as an exemplary realization of a concept for future living. 4 Moriyama House can be used to demonstrate several design considerations addressed in Japanese architecture today: The ensemble consists of ten volumes, but the areas that are related functionally are not necessarily located in the same volume. The program was not condensed into units as compact as possible and then hierarchically arranged but rather articulated as individual components and then reconnected. “The house of the future overcomes the idea of a compact volume in favor of a number of different bodies integrated into the city and dissolved within it,” 5 as the architect Sou Fujimoto describes this approach. Hence the design is marked by a process of dissolving that leads to new relationships between the components and to the city. The focus is no longer the compactness of the building and its function but rather its networking and structure. Fujimoto sees this as the “nest” being replaced by the “cave”: “a nest is prepared according to inhabitants’ sense of comfortability while a cave exists regardless of convenience or otherwise to its inhabitants […] it is not organized in the name of functionalism but by place-making that encourages people to seek a spectrum of opportunities.” 6 Moriyama House can, however, also be read as an ensemble developed around open spaces. The spaces in between are not just setback areas but rather extend 8

Claudia Hildner, Small Houses: Contemporary Japanese Dwell ings (Basel, 2011).

Akihisa Hirata, “Tangling: Plädoyer für eine neue Architektur der Verflechtung,” in “Tokio: Die Stadt bewohnen,” Arch+ 208 (August 2012): 76–81.

Koh Kitayama, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, and Ryūe Nishizawa, Tokyo Metabolizing (Tokyo, 2010).

4 Niklas Maak, “Japonisiert euch!,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, no. 43 (October 25, 2009): 21.

5 Sou Fujimoto, “Die Architektur der Primitiven Zukunft,” in “Tokio: Die Stadt bewohnen,” Arch+ 208 (August 2012): 66–71.

6 Sou Fujimoto, Primitive Future, Contemporary Architect’s Concept Series 1 (Tokyo, 2008), 24.

7 Atelier Bow-Wow, Behavioro logy (New York, 2010), 13.

8 Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, “Metabolismus der Zwischenräume: Neue Typologien des Wohnens in Tokio,” in “Tokio: Die Stadt bewohnen,” Arch+ 208 (August 2012): 30–34, esp. 34.

the private living spaces into the exterior. This new role for the interim space was first advocated by the architect Yoshiharu Tsukamoto of Atelier Bow-Wow: “The regeneration of houses would revolve not around a core, but a void – the gap space between buildings – and would be propelled by the initiatives of individual families, rather than the accumulation of central capital.” 7 In this interpretation, the dissolution of compact structures reveals the rearrangement of the remaining areas and gaps resulting from the progressive subdivision of lots during the twentieth century. Increasing density has led to building codes that primarily define property lines and setbacks. Architecture is increasingly becoming a byproduct of gaps between buildings, says Tsukamoto. 8 He and other Japanese architects counter this development with designs in which the space in between can adopt a new role, and in which its indeterminacy permits a variety of uses. By contrast, the core has lost its significance as one of the essential elements of modern architecture.

The Structure of This Book This book is divided into two sections: In her introduction Evelyn Schulz works out the fundamental cultural aspects of collective living in large Japanese cities since the seventeenth century. The focus of her reflections is on the structures of the typical residential neighborhoods in which most of the buildings presented in this publication were built and whose context now serves – in contrast to several decades ago – as inspiration for many architects’ designs. The examples presented in the project section that follows it convey a comprehensive picture of the architecture of collective living in Japan. The focus is concepts for coming up with forms and designing floor plans; they are presented with photographs and plans and explained in an accompanying text. To make it easier to read the drawings, the individual residential units in the more complex designs have been indicated by using different colors in the floor plans and sections.

Evelyn Schulz

Beyond Modernism

No future without a past: Japanese architects and urban planners are rediscovering traditional forms of collective living. Alongside structures for neighborhoods based on small buildings, premodern models for living together also serve as inspiration.

Evelyn Schulz is professor of Japanese studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-UniversitĂ¤t in Munich. Her work focuses on the literature and culture of modern Japan. Her research is dedicated to, among other subjects, the urbanist discourse there, which has recently included strategies for deceleration and how to represent it in the media. 11

Halting constant change and creating places in the city that convey historical continuity and spatial cohesion â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the desire for an environment for living and dwelling oriented around traditional structures has increased in Japan in recent years, as has the need for meeting places where collective life is possible.

01 City up to the horizon: modern Tokyo seen from Mori Tower (Roppongi Hills)

The present essay begins by outlining how processes of growth and shrinking have transformed the Japanese city since the nineteenth century. That is followed by a look at design in traditional residential districts, which also considers how well they function as places for encounters. Next we shed light on the evolution of the city in the twentieth century, from the gradual disappearance of such structures to their rediscovery. Finally, the relevance of such traditional urban structures to the current discourse on the future of urban housing in Japan will be considered.

01 12

1. Introduction and Background: Processes of Growth and Shrinking and the Search for New Forms of Housing Many questions and topics concerning urban life and the city of the future have their roots in the nineteenth century. The rapid growth of cities, advancing industrialization, and diverse processes of modernization and the formation of nation-states that were set in motion at that time remain current in various forms: urban planning and architecture, protection against catastrophes, hygiene and epidemic prevention, aesthetics and functionality, migration and integration. In Japan, the reception of such international discussions has varied in intensity since the country was opened to the outside world in the mid-nineteenth century, being questioned and supplemented to increase their relevance to Japan. At that time, far-reaching modernization processes were introduced based on the reception of the cultural legacy, ideas, and technology of the West, concentrating initially on cities, especially Tokyo, the new capital. The reception between Japan and Europe and Japan and North America was not, however, one-sided. In their search for new forms of architecture, pioneering modern architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruno Taut, and Walter Gropius encountered the premodern residential architecture of Japan, and they saw their own conception of modern architecture reflected in its simplicity, functionality, and modular construction. The worldwide recognition of Japanese wood construction was influenced especially by Bruno Taut’s discovery of the Katsura Villa, near Kyoto, in the 1930s. The enthusiastic reception of this imperial ensemble of buildings and gardens encouraged a rediscovery of indigenous architectural forms in Japan. This interest focused primarily on prototypical residences, usually freestanding villas for the upper-middle and upper classes. By contrast, the repetitive design of homes for the common residents of cities – low wooden buildings built in dense, mixed-use districts with narrow lanes – was largely ignored, as were the structure and articulation of urban space. During this period, context was primarily taken to mean the relationship to nature – that is, in most cases, to a garden. By contrast, the way these houses corresponded to their built environment and how they were shaped in part by this urban life was, at best, only of ancillary interest. This focus on the house as if it were an object standing alone was encouraged by various factors. One of these was the replacement of the extended family, which had characterized premodern society, by the nuclear family based on the modern European model. Increasing individualism encouraged retreat into the private and increased the need for corresponding forms of housing and ownership. Moreover, population growth in the cities was based on an influx from the rural population, especially the younger generation. As a result the model of the three-generation family lost significance, which in turn 13

02–03 Villa Katsura, near Kyoto, view from the garden: “The modern architect will be astonished to discover that this building is absolutely modern insofar as it fulfills its requirements in the most succinct and simplest way possible,” observed Bruno Taut in 1933. 02

accelerated the construction of smaller residential units. The architect Yoshiharu Tsukamoto speaks in this context of an “agenda of home ownership in the twentieth century” 1 that imposed on architects a program of individualizing. Whereas Japanese residential architecture is still aestheticized as a model for contemporary architecture, many metropolises are considered labyrinths and constantly changing Molochs. Tokyo in particular is considered a city where few sites offer historical continuity and spatial cohesion. This impression of continual change is reinforced by the fact that Japanese residential buildings – which still characterize the look of the Japanese city as one of many small buildings – are comparatively short-lived; their useful life averages twenty to thirty years. For a long time, the density of the center of cities and overdevelopment of the periphery dominated urban growth in Japan. Many cities developed into gigantic agglomerations. Today roughly seventy percent of the country’s population – that is, nearly a hundred million people – lives in cities, with more than thirty-five million of them in the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan region. Only in recent decades has this previously unchecked growth ground to a halt. A wide variety of factors and events have led to economic, political, and social shifts and fault lines. In addition to the pressure of globalization and the associated economic effects, the principle factors are a declining birthrate and an aging population. The shrinking processes triggered by demographic change affect both rural and urban regions and necessitate the development of forms of housing that respond to the new circumstances. The idea of the nuclear family, which for decades was a pillar of Japanese modernization, has for some time lost its authority as the dominant model. Today in the search for answers to the question of what form of architecture and urban design can make contemporary forms of living together possible eyes have turned to models from the past. An important role in this is played by smallscale, mixed-use districts, which have their roots in the seventeenth century. The majority of such districts had to give way to modern building projects over the course of the twentieth century. Those that remain provide a clue to a way of living that benefits from proximity to neighbors and areas of collective use. 14

2. Premodern Forms of Collective Spaces

04 The lanes in traditional residential districts (roji) offer the residents a meeting place and substitute for gardens.

Beginning in the seventeenth century, small-scale, densely populated, mixeduse districts were the center of urban life in Japan. In particular, the so-called “long seventeenth century of Japan” – that is, the period from around 1580 to 1720 – was characterized by developments that drove urbanization and continue to have effects today. These included the formation of a central government under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate, with Edo (present-day Tokyo) as its capital, as well as enormous economic and population growth and associated demographic urbanization. The foundations of Tokyo’s economic, political, and cultural dominance today were established at this time. Edo had more than a million residents already by the eighteenth century. During the so-called Edo or Tokugawa period (1603–1868), the social and economic order was based on a feudal society with four estates: nobles of the sword, farmers, artisans, and merchants. This structure was reflected in the form of cities as well as in residential architecture. Whereas the nobles of the sword – daimyō (feudal lords) and their samurai – usually occupied spacious properties with several buildings, the common urban population, which consisted primarily of artisans and merchants, lived in densely populated districts.

04 15

There is relatively little reliable data on population and density for this period. Edo is the best-documented city. Estimates assume that the so-called upper city (Yamanote) where the nobility of the sword resided and where there were numerous shrines and temples with gardens, had about 14,000 people per square kilometer. The lower city (Shitamachi), by contrast, is thought to have had around 69,000 people per square kilometer. The lower city was subdivided into 1,700 districts, known as machi. They represented the smallest administrative unit and at the same time were local communities that reflected the hierarchical structure of feudal society. Roughly twenty to thirty percent of city dwellers were selfemployed merchants or artisans and owned property. They were the local upper class and were organized into the so-called five households (gonin gumi), which were subject to mutual control: Five neighboring households of the upper class in a district were responsible for administration and control. This included supervising public works such as street repairs, coordinating fire prevention and fighting, maintaining the register of families, and public announcements of government edicts. Relationships between neighbors swung between closeness and control and thus could be correspondingly contradictory. The districts had a square layout with each side 109 meters long, and they were clearly laid out geographically. They were always similar in structure: A main street ran through every district; a gate with guards was located on each end. Side streets branched off the main street to provide access to the residential areas behind it. Each district had around three hundred residents, most of whom knew one another. The residents were characterized by a social homogeneity that resulted from belonging to a certain professional group or estate. Frequently the residents had close business ties. Some of the districts evolved a distinctive local identity over time and a strong sense

05 The entrances to the lanes look like gaps, running from the commercial street to the simple residential districts.

of community. A famous example of this is the Nishijin District in Kyoto, where a particular kind of weaving evolved more than twelve hundred years ago and is still passed on from generation to generation. The districts were dominated by a lively juxtaposition of housing and commerce, art and culture. The scroll Kidai shĹ?ran (Excellent View of Our Prosperous Age) of 1805 offers a comprehensive picture of their makeup. It is a twelve-meterlong panorama of what was at the time Edoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most important trading center: Nihonbashi. More than seventeen hundred people and animals and more than a hundred businesses and restaurants reveal situations from everyday life. The spatial segregation shows the social position of the household: the main street is lined with the residences and businesses of the local upper class, while on the narrow side and back lanes less wealthy dealers, artisans, and workers live in long, usually single-story, rented row houses, the so-called nagaya (row house). Two types of nagaya evolved during the Edo period: Type 1 was constructed on the properties belonging to the nobility of the sword to house warriors of the lower ranks and servants. Architecturally, these houses were arranged to create demarcation from the outside and thus offered protection against intruders. Row houses of Type 2 were constructed by the property owners in the back streets of the district to rent to propertyless artisans and merchants. Nagaya versus ura nagaya (backstreet row house) describes buildings that differed in size and quality. As a rule, one common feature was that there was at least one wall shared with the neighboring buildings and combined several residential units under one roof. Initially consisting of a single story, as land began to be used more intensively they

1 3 4 1

2 5

09 18

became two-story buildings. The homes were cramped: there were usually just one or two rooms in addition to a small kitchen. The sanitary facilities (toilet and bath) were located outside the house and were shared. A narrow lane ran between the houses to provide access to the main street. This lane, called roji in Japanese, was not a place of public transit but rather part of the semiprivate living space of the residents. In addition to the toilets, there was a well, which functioned as an informal meeting place for the residents. The word idobatakaigi (literally, gathering at the well) refers to a chance meeting of residents at the well and suggests the community life in such districts. For bodily hygiene, residents would go to a nearby bathhouse, which was another important place for informal encounters of residents. A shrine was originally part of the inventory of every roji.

3. The Disappearance of Community and the Evolution of New Forms of Housing in the Twentieth Century

06 A lane (roji) lined by row houses in a residential neighborhood with common people. 07 Schematic rendering of a neighborhood in Edo (dark: stores; bright: row houses) 08 Schematic rendering of the same neighborhood in modern Tokyo: a wall of taller commercial buildings surrounds a densely populated residential area. 09 Schematic rendering of a back lane in Edo: 1. store; 2. nagaya; 3. roji; 4. well; 5. toilet.

With the modernization of Japan, which was officially introduced at the time of the Meiji restoration in 1868, the new capital, Tokyo, initially underwent far-reaching structural, architectural, and social changes, which also had immediate effects on neighborhoods and their local communities. For example, the gates were dismantled and the sentry posts eliminated. With the loss of visible boundaries, the districts were no longer recognized as clearly delimited spaces. Administrative reforms led to shifts in boundaries, name changes, and the combination of several districts. They also lost their status as independent administrative units and were incorporated into newly created districts as the lowest administrative level. Migration, population growth, and a change in the social mix resulting from the breakdown of the feudal society of the estates led to widespread exchange within the population. All these factors contributed to the disappearance of the districts as socioeconomic, geographical, and administrative units. In addition, extensive infrastructural measures resulted in lasting changes to neighborhood life. Edo was based on a broad network of rivers and canals on which goods were transported. People either walked or took boats, so that the lower city was often depicted as a city of waterways and bridges. For example, many illustrations in the famous series of color woodcuts Meisho Edo hyakkei (One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1856â&#x20AC;&#x201C;58) by Hiroshige Utagawa (1797â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1858) depict urban waterscapes. Passersby stroll along the banks or over bridges or travel in boats. The squares in front of the bridges functioned as public spaces that fed into the districts. Such views disappeared over the course of the twentieth century. Shifting the transportation of people and goods from waterways to land had critical consequences for the structure of the city and the use of waterways. Rivers were straightened out and many canals either filled in or turned into highways. Many of the new roads cut districts in two. 19

10 Nihonbashi under snow in clear weather: scenes like those found in Hiroshige Utagawaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Âwoodcuts of Edo have largely disappeared from modern Tokyo.

The widespread destruction Tokyo suffered first from an earthquake on September 1, 1923, and then by firebombing by the Americans in the last two years of the Second World War created the conditions for extensive urban redesign. After those catastrophes Tokyo underwent intense phases of rebuilding and growth, which in turn triggered high demand for living space. During the postwar rebuilding phase and the decades of rapid economic growth that followed, new forms of housing were developed to accommodate the influx of people. Many of the wooden structures that had survived the catastrophic fires were demolished over time, usually to be replaced by multistory apartment buildings. The latter were considered more hygienic and fire-resistant; moreover, they permitted more efficient use of lots. The rented row house was also modernized as a housing type. However, the changed living and housing conditions of the residents, who were often new to the city, mean that very different kinds of relationships between neighbors evolved, and the social environment that had related to the specific district in which homes had originally been embedded was lost. In addition, new towns were established outside the conurbation hubs. They consisted largely of multistory apartment buildings of reinforced concrete with a large share of rental units (jĹŤtaku danchi or simply danchi) that were owned either by the state or by companies. Compared to crowded conditions in the center of the city, these housing complexes designed on the drafting table were spacious. They were surrounded by green spaces; they had playgrounds, businesses, and cultural facilities. In the 1960s these settlements were considered the epitome of modern living and housing conditions. The layout of the floor plans of the apartments was standardized: measuring circa forty square meters, each unit had two rooms, an 20

eat-in kitchen, and a small bathroom. Most of those living in danchi were newcomers to the area, mainly white-collar employees and their families. Relationships between neighbors were comparatively anonymous; occupants were considered loners who protected their private sphere and wanted to avoid relationships with their neighbors. Today many of the dilapidated danchi are considered unattractive, unsalable architectonic monocultures, which is why some of them have even been demolished.

4. The Rediscovery of Roji as Housing and Meeting Places in the Twenty-first Century Despite the enormous changes that have occurred in Japan’s cities over the past century, in many places there are still small neighborhoods in which the elements and structures of the premodern era have survived. These features include cramped spaces, mixed use, local community, and a majority of residents from families long established in the neighborhood. They often have roji as well, that is, the narrow, jointly used lanes between houses that have characterized traditional neighborhoods for centuries. Today they also function as sites for informal encounters of residents. Usually these lanes are so narrow and winding that they can only be used by pedestrians. Often they end in culs-de-sac. In many cases, the boundary between public and private space is barely evident. For several years there has been a search for housing forms that can do justice to the new social conditions, in such neighborhoods as well. Although the term roji refers only to a specific component of these urban structures, it has come to be synonymous for spaces to live and meet in which all generations can find their place and where a deceleration of the tempo of life – slow life – is possible. The residents find calm and relaxation, children find playmates in the neighborhood, and older people find conversation partners. Homes, businesses, and sometimes workplaces are close together, so that everyday life can be managed on foot. In his study Nihon-ban surō shiti: Chiiki koyū no bunka, fūdo o ikasu machizukuri (The Japanese version of the Slow City: Urban renewal that revives the particular culture of a region and its natural environment, 2008), the urban and regional planner Tetsunosuke Hisashige lists five features of a slow city, which also come up in the current discussion of roji: 1) being human: the ability to walk a comfortable pace in public spaces that are designed on a human scale; 2) slow food: enjoying locally produced food; 3) integration, with residents sharing the specific culture and history of a region; 4) communication between residents; 5) a sustainable lifestyle that takes into account the intentions of the residents. 21

Because of Tokyo’s centrality, the discourse on roji and their potential to create spaces of collective living has concentrated on Japan’s capital. Several of the surviving districts in Tokyo have been carefully renovated and revived in recent decades; they function as a model for Japan as a whole. Yanaka, Kagurazaka, and Kichijōji are particularly well-known examples. The popularity of these districts illustrates the reinterpretation they have undergone in recent years: they used to be considered backward and worthy of demolition; now they are seen as trailblazers of a new urbanism. Despite looking very different, the districts just named have commonalities. They include, among other things, the interaction of various functions: trade and crafts, culture and entertainment, living and meeting. Two of these neighborhoods, Yanaka and Kagurazaka, are located in the center of Tokyo; Kichijōji is located outside it on a main train line and has a train station where several lines meet. Yanaka and its adjacent areas are considered pioneers in the revitalization of roji districts. In this case, revitalization means that an environment of living and working in the center of the city is preserved and expanded by means of short roads, local businesses, and small cultural facilities. So Yanaka is not just a residential neighborhood but has also developed into a popular destination in the center of the city. Many small businesses, galleries, and cafés create a relaxed atmosphere. Older people live here as well as the young. Everyday life can be managed on foot. In recent decades, Kichijōji has evolved into a diverse, mixed-use, very lively part of the city on the periphery of Tokyo. The process that led to Kichijōji taking the form it has today is characteristic of the new appreciation for such neighborhoods in general. In the 1960s large apartments were built near the train station, where there were still many roji neighborhoods. Initially the plan was to demolish dilapidated wooden buildings. However, local citizens’ action groups successfully protested these plans, which ultimately led to the neighborhoods’ being preserved. The area around the train station has since become a popular destination precisely because it is so diverse, and the whole neighborhood has evolved into an attractive residential and commercial area. Kichijōji has diverse infrastructure: a pedestrian zone extends from the train station to the immediate vicinity; in the small streets right around the train station there are small, local specialty restaurants, jazz cafés, bookstores, and large department stores. The other side of the coin of this successful revival is that the great popularity of Kichijōji as a place to live and work has led to enormous increases in rents and real estate prices in recent years. In the examples mentioned above, the revitalization of roji neighborhoods is borne by strong local communities and based on marketing strategies that lead to commercial success. Often shopping streets with local businesses have thrived there, whereas in many places in Japan they are fighting for survival or have already been closed. Examples such as Kichijōji and Yanaka demonstrate that local citizens’ groups can successfully organize resistance against expensive, large-scale 22

11 Many small parts and a mix of functions rather than large-scale replanning: traditional urban structures could be preserved in Yanaka.

construction projects and the gentrification that goes along with them. Where neighborhoods in the center of the city are concerned, reviving traditional structures has another aspect: land in Tokyo has become extremely expensive, and high estate taxes and rising land prices mean that at least part of an inherited property is often sold. Thus Japanese laws concerning inheritance feed land speculation and an unchecked building craze. In Tokyo lots are constantly being offered for sale that in many cases will be purchased by investors and turned into large, multistory housing complexes. The sudden increase in so-called POPS (privately owned public spaces) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; large, multifunctional building projects sponsored by private companies â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is also significant in this context. POPS are usually a combination of office buildings, exclusive apartment high-rises, shopping centers, and parks open to the public. They are like a city within the city, and hence they are often not very well integrated into their surroundings. Since the turn of the millennium there have been several spectacular projects of this kind in Tokyo. One particularly striking example, which sparked controversy, is the multifunctional Roppongi Hills complex, which was completed in 2003. The Roppongi District is close to the government district, where there are many embassies as well as the headquarters for several international corporations. The site where the complex was constructed was previously a neighborhood of small buildings. The developer and investor Minoru Mori (1934â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2012) needed around fifteen years to acquire the lots necessary to build Roppongi Hills. The neighborhood was demolished, and the more-than-4-billiondollar complex was built on the site thus freed up. In addition to the 238-meter-tall Mori Tower, which forms the center of the complex and houses an art museum, restaurants, boutiques, and offices, among other things, it includes a Grand Hyatt

Hotel and two high-rises with luxury apartments. A park open to the public connects the buildings. Roppongi Hills offers exclusive, globalized worlds for living, working, and shopping that are unaffordable for the majority of the population. When developing the neighborhood, Minoru Mori alluded to Modernist architects such as Le Corbusier and developed from them his own idea of a better, modern life in the city. He interpreted the complex of buildings as a vertical garden city in which home, work, and recreation are all close together. In the view of the critics of such monumental urban design, the roji offer a sustainable alternative that encourages living together. They represent not only an established form of housing oriented around neighborhoods but also a concept for space that calls into question hegemonic ideas of modernity and progress and opposes capitalizing on urban spaces. Various parties are involved in the rediscovery of the social, economic, and ecological value of roji structures. For some time architects have been working on contemporary ways to update roji neighborhoods, for example, by replacing the individual houses with residences that take the context into account. Moreover, elements of roji serve as inspiration for designers, for example, in the case of residences for the elderly, who often grew up in such traditional neighborhoods. Typical roji elements such as zones of shared use are intended to encourage communication among residents in such projects. That led to a turn away from the â&#x20AC;&#x153;program of individualizingâ&#x20AC;? and toward the immediate urban

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12 Roppongi Hills in the center of Tokyo: the complex includes, among other things, the imposing Mori Tower and two red-andwhite residential high-rises. 13 This design, known as Rojikaku, is part of the project Tokyo Urban Ring, which is concerned with how densely populated residential districts composed of small buildings can be preserved. 14 Each collectively used core provides several residences with additional space and technical infrastructure.

surroundings. In view of the great changes Japan confronts, the architect Kishō Kurokawa, who died in 2007, has gone as far as to call roji the “key to the future.” 2 Many projects reflect this coming to terms with roji structures as inspiration for new forms of collective housing and living together (cohousing). One striking example is the design for a so-called “roji core” (rojikaku): a four-story tower in the middle of a residential neighborhood with collectively used spaces such as kitchens, bathrooms, and bicycle parking. There is also a public herb garden on the roof. The design for this tower was presented to the public in the exhibition Tokyo 2050: 12 Visions for the Metropolis in September 2011. The subject of the exhibition and the associated events was the discussion of designs that – in contrast to earlier, growth-oriented designs – respond to demographic changes and the associated processes of shrinking.

5. Summary and Looking Forward Reactivating small-scale urban structures that provide areas to be used collectively and applying this concept to new buildings can be interpreted as a further refinement of forms of neighborhood-oriented housing with roots in the premodern era. This development points to a strong need for a local, historically evolved ur25

banism. The discourses and initiatives associated with it make it clear that globalization has not made space or site superfluous; rather, the importance of the local is being reactivated. In addition, they are an expression of the need to return the city and urban life to a human scale. These developments are being supported by lawmakers. In 2004 the “landscape law” (keikanhō) was passed, which is designed not only to protect and preserve the urban legacy but also to pursue sustainable design of landscapes and cities. The goal is to improve the quality of life and to conserve environmental resources. Moreover, many aspects of the debate in Japan relate the global trend of cohousing and other principles and theories to f uture living. Thus the discourse about roji and about megaprojects such as Roppongi Hills refer to two sides of the same coin. Each of these structures is a variation on the compact city, which is also becoming more relevant in Japan. Given the enormous challenges that face Japan in the post-Fukushima era, it is reasonable to assume that the search for forms of living together that take into account both social and ecological sustainability is far from over.

Bibliography: “Tokio: Die Stadt bewohnen,” Arch+ 208 (August 2012). Ashihara, Yoshinobu. The Hidden Order: Tokyo through the Twentieth Century. Tokyo, 1989; orig. pub. as Kakureta chitsujo: Nijūisseiki no toshi ni mukatte. Tokyo, 1986. Brumann, Christoph, and Evelyn Schulz. Urban Spaces in Japan: Cultural and Social Perspectives. London/ New York, 2012. Cybriwksy, Roman A. Roppongi Crossing: The Demise of a Tokyo Nightclub District and the Reshaping of a Global City. Athens, 2011. Enders, Siegfried R. C. T. Japanische Wohnformen und ihre Veränderung. Hamburg, 1979. Hisashige, Tetsunosuke. Nihon-ban surō shiti: Chiiki koyū no bunka, fūdo o ikasu machizukuri. Tokyo, 2008. Kurokawa, Kishō. Toshi kakumei: Kōyū kara kyōyū e. Tokyo, 2006. Morse, Samuel C. Reinventing Tokyo: Japan’s Largest City in the Artistic Imagination. Amherst, 2012. Nihon Kenchiku Gakkai. Seikatsukei: Mijikana keikan kachi no hakken to machizukuri. Tokyo, 2009. Nishimura, Yukio, ed. Toshibi: Toshi keikan shisetsu no genryū to sono tenkai. Kyoto, 2005. Okamoto, Satoshi. Edo Tōkyō no roji: Shintai kankaku de saguru ba no miryoku. Tokyo, 2006. Oono [Ohno], Hidetoshi, ed. Shurinkingu Nippon: Shukushō suru toshi no mirai senryaku. Tokyo, 2008. Radović, Darko. Another Tokyo: Places and Practices of Urban Resistance. Tokyo, 2008. Radović, Darko, and Davisi Boontharm, eds. Small Tokyo. Tokyo, 2012. Schmidtpott, Katja. Nachbarschaft und Urbanisierung in Japan, 1890–1970. Munich, 2009. Sorensen, André. The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and planning from Edo to the Twenty-first Century. London/New York, 2004. Sorensen, André, and Carolin Funck, eds. Living Cities in Japan: Citizens’ movements, machizukuri and local environments. London/New York, 2007. Suzuki, Hiroshi. Nihon konpakuto shitī: Chiiki junkan-gata toshi no kōchiku. Tokyo, 2007. Ueda, Atsushi, and Osamu Tabata, eds. Roji kenkyū: Mō hitotsu no toshi no hiroba. Tokyo, 2013. Usugi, Kazuo, et al., eds. Roji ni manabu seikatsu kūkan no saiseijutsu. Tokyo, 2010. Yazaki, Takeo. Social Change and the City in Japan: From Earliest Times through the Industrial Revolution. Tokyo, 1968.

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, “ Metabolismus der Zwischenräume: Neue Typologien des Wohnens in Tokio,” in “Tokio: Die Stadt bewohnen,” Arch+ 208 (August 2012): 30–34, esp. 34.

Kurokawa, Kishō. Toshi kaku mei: Kōyū kara kyōyū e. Tokyo, 2006: 86.

SOSHIGAYA HOUSE BE-FUN DESIGN + EANA | Tokyo 2012

155 m2 total floor area 4 units 30 m2 / 70 mÂ˛ floor area per unit 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;4 occupants per unit The courtyard as center: An ensemble with four units forms an exterior space for common use for which events are planned to enliven the place. There is, however, no obligation to join the community, as the private sphere of the occupants has been preserved.

01 A cozy little place: this interior courtyard provides a meeting place for residents. 02 View of the ensemble from the east: the courtyard opens up onto a vacant lot.

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03 30

In an emergency, the individual has to be able to count on support from the community. The importance of relationships with neighbors came into focus for the architects from Be-Fun Design and EANA after the catastrophe of an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The four units of Soshigaya House in the Setagaya District of Tokyo are therefore arranged like a bracket around an exterior space that can be used by all the residents. The ensemble is somewhat hidden: A narrow lane provides access to the lot from the street. The ensemble starts with the largest housing unit, which is suitable for a family with children and includes a parking space. Square slabs of various sizes lying on a bed of gravel lead into the courtyard, around which the four residential units are grouped â&#x20AC;&#x201C; united in one volume â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and from which they are accessed. The stepping-stones and gravel of the courtyard would be reminiscent of a dry or rock garden, were it not for the trees in the center, which are intended to offer a suitable background for Japanese festivals, which are often closely tied to the change in seasons. The architects closely interwove the common area with the private exterior spaces, namely, the entry areas and balconies of the three smaller maisonette units.

03 The entries of the three maisonette units can be opened facing the courtyard by means of sliding wooden elements. 04 A ladder on the second floor of the maisonette apartments leads into a cube above. 05 Each of the loggialike balconies faces two sides.

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Cross section, scale 1:250

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Second floor

Ground floor, scale 1:250

06 Events are planned to enliven the small courtyard in the future. 07 Articulated by steps: the living room on the second floor of the northern residential unit (in blue on plan)

Apart from these connecting points, however, the four apartments are relatively self-contained: The window openings do not face the courtyard but are instead oriented toward the outdoors, and the entry areas of the small units can be separated by large wooden sliding doors. Proximity to the neighbors is made possible but not compulsory. In Japanese there is an old expression for immediate neighbors, mukō sangen ryōdonari, which translated literally means “the three houses opposite and the two next door.” For the architects, this description of the closest ties that one once had outside the family became the point of departure for their design – albeit with the knowledge that this “next door and opposite” no longer has the same relevance today that it once had and thus has to be reinterpreted. The concept of forming a community will only function if the residents are fundamentally prepared to establish close contact with their neighbors. It is, however, probable that the design of Soshigaya House will primarily attract tenants who place value on such a tie. Moreover, for the first year the architects developed a proposal for events that would ensure that the courtyard is regularly used jointly by the residents – and perhaps also by others living in the district.

Tokyo Apartment Sou Fujimoto Architects | Tokyo 2009

180 m² total floor area 4 units 35–60 m² floor area per unit 2–4 occupants per unit A tower composed of small houses: four apartments that are accessed independently but form a striking unity. Spaces in between them that seem to lack function open up new fields for experimenting with housing.

01 On the way to the house above the house: this glazed connection between the rooms in this unit (in red on plan) offers an intense connection to the outdoors.

Site plan, scale 1:750

Stacked primitive huts: Each of the four units of the Tokyo Apartment in the Itabashi District is composed of several volumes, each of which has the prototypical form of a residence. The feeling of living in one’s “own” house is further reinforced by separate entrances, some of which are accessed via outdoor stairs. At the same time, the building looks like a kind of compressed city that can be conquered like a mountain peak. The volumes of which each unit is composed differ in size and are slightly rotated with respect to one another. Three of the units are maisonettes, with the lower two apartments incorporating the cellar. The sections of the building that are above ground are wood construction. The supporting elements and the reinforcements are found in places where they would not ordinarily be expected: diagonal construction elements crisscross the windows; single supports stand in the middle of a room. In this design Fujimoto aims for a kind of chaos that recalls the structure of large Japanese cities. The experience of urban space in Japan is characterized by a juxtaposition of everyday forms of architecture without regard to context, which results in new, unexpected 36

Cross sections, scale 1:200

02 Here Sou Fujimoto has translated the charm of the experience of urban space in Tokyo in a residential building. 03 It is not just the interior spaces that invite residents to discover and appropriate them.

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04 White steel stairs characterize the building both outside and inside. Only a few details betray that the building is wood construction above ground.

Ground floor, second floor, third floor, scale 1:200

05 05 The construction is wood but does not follow a strict grid: hence crosspieces and braces appear in unexpected places in several residential units.

Sou Fujimoto, “Tokyo Apartment,” in “Redefining Collectivity,” JA: The Japan Architect, no. 78 (Summer 2010): 94–101, esp. 101, 98.

relationships. For the architect, the behavior of the house is primarily a reflection of the relationships found in Tokyo: “Superimposed upon the composition are experiences created by chance and necessity, which result from agglomeration … It is more like Tokyo than Tokyo itself; Tokyo that doesn’t exist; the Tokyo which is most like Tokyo.” 1 Tokyo Apartment does not foreground the functionality of the units. Rather, Fujimoto emphasizes changing views outward and rooms that are formed by the experience and creativity of the residents. Exterior and interior stairs and the stacking of the residual spaces invite residents to discover new uses. Hence unforced encounters with the neighbors become possible, which, along with the high recognizability of the architecture, can encourage the residents to identify with the building.

Setagaya Cooperative House Hitoshi Wakamatsu Architects | Tokyo 2013

510 m² total floor area 8 units 60–80 m² floor area per unit 3–5 occupants per unit The heterogeneous look of the shell of the building already suggests it: The units were constructed according to the individual desires of their future occupants. A developer brought the eight clients together; the architect designed an individual unit for each of them.

01 This tall space is hidden beneath two outdoor stairwells that provide access to apartments on the upper floor (unit in bright blue on plan). 02 Unity despite diversity: each of the eight clients wanted a home based on his or her individual wishes.

02 41

Site plan, scale 1:2,500

03 The maisonettes are nested in space; this unit (in dark blue on plan) has a half-height gallery above the bathroom. 04 Connection between living room and roof terrace on the third floor (in magenta on plan) Ground floor, second floor, cross section, scale 1:500

Roughly sixty percent of all Japanese live in single-family homes. Even in the cities, this number is relatively high, though they are rarely surrounded by a garden but are nearly always dominated by the directly adjacent facades of neighboring buildings. The opportunity to design a home in accordance with oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own ideas clearly appeals strongly to people. When planning the Setagaya Cooperative House, the principle of the single-family home was applied to a residential building with several units. A developer specialized in such collaborative projects first found the clients based on a rough architectural concept, worked out a budget, and then established a schedule. Once the lot had been subdivided, the architectural firm of Hitoshi Wakamatsu took on the group of clients. The architect planned the building from the inside out and developed an overall complex from the sum of the residentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; wishes. Instead of creating a frame to be filled by the residents, as is usually done 42

inÂ projects for developers, the users themselves were the basic framework for their future homes. The result reflects this project in the use of different materials and colors, the formal diversity of the doors and windows, and the irregular arrangements of stairs, balconies, and terraces. The building houses eight units in all, accessed individually via a shared front yard. Four of the maisonettes are developed working from the ground floor into the cellar; the other four are located on the upper floors and have access to a roof garden. Because the maisonettes are not placed compactly within the complex but rather occupy a different location on each floor, each unit faces outward in multiple directions. Their individuality contrasts with the fact that the apartments are closely interwoven in three dimensions.

04 43

Yokohama Apartment ON design & Partners | Yokohama 2011

152 mÂ˛ total floor area 4 units 25 mÂ˛ floor area per unit 1 artist per unit Four residential units for artists span a semipublic space in a residential neighborhood in Yokohama characterized by small buildings. The common area provides the residents with additional space and is intended to be open to neighbors as well.

01 Exterior or interior? The ground floor forms a transition zone between the street and the private residential units. 02 A compact volume housing four residential units sits above the collectively used multipurpose area.

02 45

The building is located in a hilly residential area with narrow, winding streets and small single-family homes standing close together. In such residential neighborhoods in Japan, separation from immediate neighbors is often a crucial theme of the design. A feeling of distance results despite the physical closeness of the buildings. Yokohama Apartment breaks this pattern: the inviting gesture of the broadly open ground floor is no empty promise, since the space is indeed supposed to be alive with events such as exhibitions and lectures and other shared uses. The courtyard is formed by a construction on stilts with four small apartments made available to artists. The users are thus part of the concept, since whether the open courtyard is accepted as a site for events depends on the willingness of the residents to embrace the experiment.

03 46

Ground floor and second floor, scale 1:250

Every unit is accessed via its own outdoor stairway. Each stairway winds around a core with a triangular floor plan where the storage and multifunction rooms are located. On the ground floor some of these areas are arranged around the common space, so that furniture, equipment, and materials necessary for events can be stored there. The apartments function independently of the common space, and some even have private balconies, though because of their small size they are of limited use for extended lounging. The residents will probably tend to shift instead to the common ground floor for activities such as cooking and eating during the warm season and to the extent they share the right chemistry. If necessary, transparent curtains can be used to protect the common area from all too direct access and drafts. The architects, Osamu Nishida and Erika Nakagawa, see the covered courtyard as a continuation of the Modernist ground floor on stilts: the goal is an architecture that does not follow rigid formal criteria but instead offers space for the expression of individual lifestyles.

04 03 Two-story storage spaces with triangular floor plans delimit the space on the ground floor. 04 The apartments on the second floor function independently but leave hardly any room to work on art (unit in yellow on plan).

Nerima Apartment Go Hasegawa & Associates | Tokyo 2010

1,054 m² total floor area 20 units 28–44.5 m² floor area per unit 1–2 occupants per unit Single- and multistory units with various floor plans form a compact volume around a central access core. Every apartment has a loggia, regulating the relationship between private space and the city.

01 Protected outdoor space: single and multistory loggias extend the living space and substitute for gardens. 02 Window-like openings on the outer shell frame the views out from the loggias behind them.

02 49

The typical rental unit for singles in a large Japanese city is the one-room apartment. These units, which as a rule consist of only twenty square meters, are lined up like boxes in multistory apartment buildings. The Japanese housing market does not offer a lot of options to people who want a small apartment without a standardized floor plan. The Nerima Apartment represents an effort by Go Hasegawa to redefine this type: The various uses compressed into housing boxes are freed up and reassembled; open mini-balconies are replaced by habitable loggias. The residential units can be divided into three types of floor plan: the multistory maisonette apartment with an open loggia that extends across all floors; the elongated unit, in which the rooms are lined along the facade; and the L-shaped corner apartment. Combining these three floor plans results in a compact volume accessed from the center of the building. Despite their integration into the overall work, Hasegawa calls the loggias “terraces,” and he imagines the residents using them like gardens. Yet the view in from outside is extremely limited – unlike with a balcony or large windows – so that the residents can use their open spaces unobserved. Fourth floor, scale 1:250

As a rule, the loggias of the Nerima Apartment are closely connected to the bathrooms of the units; the two Âareas even have similar tile. The bathroom is thus separated out of the interior and realized on the threshold to urban space. This can also be seen as an allusion to traditional practices, since well into the twentieth century the Japanese relied primarily on public baths for thorough bodily hygiene (see also page 11 ff.).

Cross section, scale 1:500

The loggias offer residents an opportunity to pursue certain activities largely irrespective of the weather outdoors. Undisturbed by the eyes of neighbors and passersby, the users enjoy framed views outward or consciously accept visual contact. When density no longer means uniformity, and being seen is no longer unavoidable but rather a choice, it improves the quality of communal living and also, under some circumstances, the willingness to approach other residents and to regard urban space as enriching.

03 Some of the apartments are multistory and offer a spacious loggia. 04 Entry, wardrobe, kitchen, workspace, loggia, and access are all housed in the tiniest space in this unit. 51

One-Roof Apartment Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office | Jōetsu 2010

958 m² total floor area 19 units 29–44 m² floor area per unit 1–2 occupants per unit The building is stretched over the foyer like a tent: the striking form of the spacious entry sets the tone for this multistory apartment building both outside and inside. The collectively used areas thus become the focus of the design.

01 The tapering of the space – and the light from the side and from above – makes this foyer seem almost sacred. 02 The building is accessed from the south via a parking lot.

02 53

Between the mountains and the sea: The city of Jōetsu in Nīgata lies on the coast of the Sea of Japan and is surrounded by the foothills of the Japanese Alps. Unlike in Tokyo, say, the winters here are cold and snowy, hence the architect Akihisa Hirata abandoned the ideas of terraces or balconies from the outset. Given the climate, the farmhouses typical of this region feature overhanging roofs that reach almost to the ground, protecting the building from snow and cold in the winter. Hirata’s design takes up this theme: Parts of the building are “slit open” from below and stretched wide. This results in a kind of protective tent inside, which is formed by the surrounding building volumes – that is, the apartments themselves. The principle is somewhat reminiscent of Sachio Ōtani’s Kawaramachi Danchi of 1972, although the differences in scale mean the buildings are scarcely comparable in other respects.

04 54

05 03 Schematic rendering of the design concept 04 Slit open: the building presents passersby a view into the interior. 05 The walls of the building slope at different angles; slits mark the transition.

From outside, the building resembles an exposed-concrete block whose front third offers a somewhat unconventional, Âtrapezoidal cross section. The slits, some of which extend the full height of the building, are largely glazed on the short and long sides; the entrance to the building faces a parking lot to the south. Two window formats of different sizes are staggered, and the jambs are angled, so that the building appears to be resisting a monotonous order.

Cross section, scale 1:250

06 View into the maisonette apartment furthest west: a narrow stairway leads from the ground floor to the second floor â&#x20AC;Ś 07 â&#x20AC;Ś where a bent corridor leads into the southern part of the apartment.

Ground floor, second to fourth floors, scale 1:500

06 56

On the ground floor, visitors are received by a cathedral-like space that narrows toward the top. The foyer tapers to the west into a narrows. The entire area is lit from above and from slits on the side. The raw surface of the walls and the mirror tiles distributed randomly on it provide soft indirect light and interesting reflections.

08 At the end of the corridor in the maisonette apartments is an eat-in kitchen with a view to the south.

The central access zone is crossed by closed bridges and galleries that connect the otherwise separated parts of the building to the north and south. They indicate that several of the floor plans develop across the narrow. Hirata designed maisonette apartments that are accessed via the northern section on the ground floor and the third floor and then extend the entire width on the floor above to the south, where they face the mountains. In addition, there are one- and two-room apartments in the One-Roof Apartment. The architect clearly based the design of the common areas more on the qualities of the surrounding nature, the mountains, than the urban context. But for that very reason, it resulted in a spatial complexity that causes one to forget the surroundings â&#x20AC;&#x201C; several meters away there is an enormous mall with around nine thousand square meters of floor space and an even larger parking lot. For the residents, and for the neighbors, the One-Roof Apartment offers a point of identification in this diffuse region on the edge of the city.

Share Yaraicho Satoko Shinohara + Ayano Uchimura | Tokyo 2012

184 m² total floor 7 units 13–15.5 m² floor area per unit 1 occupant per unit Share rather than own: In this example of communal housing, the common rooms occupy many times the floor space of the private ones. The residents benefit from a workshop and a roof garden.

01 A simple tarpaulin separates the workshop area from the street. 02 Seen from outside, the building looks almost provisional because of the tarp spread in front of it. 03 The roof terrace and its herb garden are used collectively.

03 59

Communal housing was long regarded in Japan as at most a provisional solution for students. Recently, however, communal living has been experiencing a small boom; it attracts in particular young professionals, often from the experimental side of the design and architecture worlds. Rather than moving into an expensive, small apartment on the outskirts of the city, these Japanese prefer to live together and share certain areas. One example of what a contemporary housing share can look like is Share Yaraicho by the female architects Satoko Shinohara (Spatial Design Studio) and Ayano Uchimura (A Studio). A semitransparent tarpaulin sets the tone of the principal facade of the building and attracts the attention of passersby and neighbors in a residential neighborhood of small buildings in the Shinjuku District. The architects distributed the private spaces freely within the steel construction, so that the seven units are arranged in such a way that their floors and ceilings do not touch. This helps insulate against noise, but it also makes cleaning more difficult, as the spaces between units are only sixty centimeters across.

Ground floor, second floor, third floor, top view of roof, scale 1:300

04 The workshop extends across the entire length of the ground floor; in the southern area it sits between one of the private residential boxes and the shared bathroom.

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Cross sections, scale 1:250

05 62

Above and between the individual rooms are the common areas: on entering the building, one arrives first in the workshops, where the residents can produce their own furniture, for example. In this entry area one can appreciate the full height of the building, 9.3Â Âmeters, since the facade of the living areas on the upper floors was built at a slight distance from the outer tarpaulin. The eat-in kitchen on the third floor rests on the roof of the residential units below it and is, like all the interior spaces, distinguished by larch plywood paneling on all sides. Hinged doors of aluminum with polycarbonate panels allow one to open up or close off the workshop areas. An exterior staircase leads to a spacious roof terrace with an herb garden.

05 The shared eat-in kitchen is delimited by swing doors to the entry in the north. 06 In both the common areas and in the private, larch plywood dominates the impression of the space. 07 The largest residential box, on the second floor, faces north, but polyÂ carbonate elements provide a lot of light inside.

The many common zones considerably expand the living space of each resident, and the expense of cleaning and maintaining the rooms and facilities is shared by all. The integration of workshops and an herb garden reflects the zeitgeist of the moment, but it also draws on a vision of urban living that is at once autonomous and rooted in community.

Slide Komada Architects’ Office | Tokyo 2009

749 m² total floor area 9 units 60–100 m² floor area per unit 2–5 occupants per unit Steps as habitat: the floor plans of the apartments flow diagonally across several levels upward or downward. Every unit is directly accessible from outside and has a private outdoor space either in the interior courtyard or on the roof.

01 Living along the stairwell: plateaus resulting from slanted planes subdivide the areas of the apartment. 02 Even the roof terraces are articulated by stairs.

02 65

Site plan, scale 1:2,000

In a quiet residential area in the Suginami District of Tokyo, Takeshi and Yuka Komada produced nine apartments that are accessed separately from the ground floor. Inside, the individual units develop diagonally upward or downward via steps and galleries across two or more floors. The various apartments are thus structurally closely interlocked. Both architects say that planners often create residential buildings with several units as a kind of skeleton that the residents then occupy and decorate. In their view, this process is like renovation, since the concept for the interior and that for the shell can be considered largely independently of each other. By contrast, in Slide they interpreted its construction and its inner life as a whole; the individual units develop into a landscape that can be occupied by the residents. The volume of the building, which has as many as three floors above ground and a complex interior, looks compact and restrained when seen from outside. The units were constructed around a long courtyard, and the five slabs run diagonally upward from below â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that is, they start off as a cellar roof and end as a roof terrace. Each apartment has at least two floors. The stairs and galleries link the various living areas, resulting in a space that includes several levels. Four of the nine apartments face the courtyard and have 66

03 The five slabs have slanted parts running from the basement to the roof terrace. 04 The interior has apartments with bright, flowing spaces, which can be closed off with curtains.

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Development, scale 1:500

05 Steps up to the outdoor area: the roof terrace is Âaccessed via an exterior staircase that residents can use in a variety of ways.

Top view of roof

Third floor

Second floor

gardens there, separated from the neighboring areas by trellises with green vines. The other five units have roof terraces; these private outdoor areas are also terraced.

Ground floor, scale 1:500

Both outside and inside, this unusual construction invites residents to use the steps as living spaces. The subtle dovetailing of the various units also makes it difficult to identify the position of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own apartment from outside; the individual unit is perceived as an integral part of the overall complex.

Basement

Apartment I Office of Kumiko Inui | Tokyo 2007

128 mÂ˛ total floor area 5 units 18 mÂ˛ floor area per unit 1 occupant per unit A tower with five apartments developed around a variable access core: the necessary minimizing of the building volumes contributed to a solution that playfully reinterprets the principles of modernism and creates individual living spaces.

01 The apartments flow around the central access core and maximize views of the surroundings. 02 The basement apartment is screened off by a fence.

Site plan, scale 1:750

201 101 301 03 The access core provides the apartments with room for technical equipment and household appliances.

201 401

04 At their narrowest points, the apartments are barely a meter wide. 05 Sketches by the architect: rendering of the relationships between the views of residents, neighbors, and passersby in a standard residence and in Apartment I.

101 301501 03 Fourth floor

401 201 Third floor

101 501 301 Second floor

201 401 Ground floor, scale 1:250

101 501 301 04 72

Basement

2 401

In this residential neighborhood composed of small buildings near the Hirō train station in the Shibuya district, there are strict rules for the size of building volumes and the placement of the building on the lot. In order to create the five units demanded by the client despite these restrictions, Kumiko Inui had to place one apartment below ground. On a lot of just forty-three square meters, the architect created an all-glass tower in which each floor corresponds to one residential unit. The access core, which houses the building systems, shifts slightly from one level to the next, which permits individual floor plans despite the compact form of the volume. The floor plans are therefore more like continuous balconies than apartments: almost everywhere the distance between the core and the facade is just 1.7 meters. “One challenge for contemporary architecture in Japan is to grow out of the functionalism of Modernism,” says Kumiko Inui. 1 With Apartment I she played with Modernist principles by reinterpreting the elements of the building: The access core does not run through continuously vertically but is rather slightly staggered on each floor. Consequently, the alternative O- and U-shaped floor plans are laid out a little differently on each floor. The relatively homogeneous design of the facade delimits the interior but the full-height, openable windows ensure that the residents perceive the city as part of their private space.

Kumiko Inui, in “Bewohnte Naturen: Ioanna Angelidou im Gespräch mit Kumiko Inui,” in: “Tokio: Die Stadt bewohnen,” Arch+ 208 (August 2012): 52–57, esp. 54.

Cross sections, scale 1:250

Yotsuya Tenera Akira Koyama + Key Operation Inc. | Tokyo 2010

360 m² total floor area 12 units 20–33 m² floor area per unit 1–3 occupants per unit The close connection of the private outdoor areas to the bright stairwells results in semiprivate areas that increase interest in neighbors by means of views in and chance meetings and hence encourage relationships.

01 Open on top: the stairwells look like a bright interim space thanks to their many openings. 02 The surface of the exposed concrete is achieved with formwork of larch plywood.

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Isometric drawing

Like many of Tokyo’s traditional residential neighborhoods, the area around Yotsuya train station still has narrow lanes and tightly packed two-story dwellings. In the middle of this labyrinth of small buildings lies the Yotsuya Tenera apartment house by the Tokyo firm Akira Koyama + Key Operation Inc. Its most striking feature is the wood grain of the exposed-concrete facade, which shimmers gently like velvet when lit from behind. The architect Akira Koyama had originally planned a facade paneling of traditional Japanese cedar. But the costs would have exceeded the budget, so in the end an exposed-concrete facade was chosen, with larch plywood used for the formwork. The lot is composed of two rectangles, on which was placed a nearly L-shaped volume. But rather than positioning the volume so that it sits on the northern edge and is at a greater distance from the neighboring lot to the southwest, the architect decided to have an entrance court with plants in the northwest. This area, where there is an old well from the Edo period, also serves as the official escape route to which every residence must, in accordance with Japanese buildings codes, have direct access without using the shared stairwell. Koyama calls the two stairwells “tree-shaped voids.” On the ground floor they open onto the entrance court; they are terminated on top by glass roofs. From inside they look like open spaces shoved 76

03 The entrance courtyard has a well from the Edo period. 04 The balconies open outward and toward the stairwell.

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Ground floor, second floor, third floor, scale 1:250

05 Larch was also used for the built-ins inside the apartments.

between the towers of the apartments like spacers. The apartments are rather modest in size: they range between twenty and thirty-three square meters. But each floor plan is unique.

06 Exposed concrete and wood elements contrast with walls and ceilings that are painted white.

The same type of larch plywood used for the formwork of the external walls was used for the built-in furniture inside. This simple wood contrasts with the walls, most of which are painted white, and the expensive wooden floors of high-grade oiled teak. A door leads from the living room to a kind of loggia, though its small size makes it more like a Juliet balcony. Each of these balconies borders on one of the two stairwells and can therefore be read as an extension of it. This private outdoor space is thus in a sense attached to the public area of the apartment house and vice versa. The stairwells are not only excellently lit and ventilated but also offer exciting views through and in, which also ensures that order reigns on the balconies, which in large Japanese cities primarily serve as a place to store the air conditioner and to hang laundry.

Cross section, scale 1:250

M-apartment Shinichirō Iwata Architect | Funabashi 2012

256 m² total floor area 8 units 28–38 m² floor area per unit 1–2 occupants per unit Shared and private access corridors are placed like a grid over this one-story residential landscape and form striking sightlines and open strips of light. Inside the individual units, the living areas are lined up niche-like along these corridors.

01 The bright corridor inside the apartments looks like a small lane along which various volumes are located. 02 Densely packed: the rhythmically articulated site includes an area with commercial units (on the left in the photograph).

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Cross section, scale 1:500

A residential tapestry composed of eight units: In the M-Apartment in Funabashi, in Chiba prefecture, the floor plans of the individual apartments are intertwined so closely that a tightly woven fabric results. At first, the function of the one-story building complex remains vague to the observer: rather than a collection of individual apartments, one is more likely to suspect there is some kind of dormitory behind this facade.

03 Two-story living area with continuous shelf 04 The private corridor can be surveyed completely from the common access corridor.

But ShinichirĹ? Iwata challenges not only the viewers but also the residents of his building: Inside, the boundaries between public and private space and the transitions between inside and outside are

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Ground floor, top view of roof, scale 1:750

sometimes consciously blurred. For example, the shared and private access lanes form a grid of sightlines and open strips of light. The private corridors are accessed on both sides via glazed entrances. This transparency enables them to be surveyed completely from outside â&#x20AC;&#x201C; indeed, even passersby can glimpse into the private halls if the residents permit them. In most of the apartments the light-flooded corridor is lined with â&#x20AC;&#x153;nichesâ&#x20AC;? that house the kitchen, bathroom, and living room. Only the courtyard-like terrace, which looks as it if had been stamped out of the overall volume, is accessed indirectly as a rule. Because there is no separate sleeping area, the multifunctional use of the living area that is traditional in Japan is obligatory here. Iwata varied the outward appearance of the one-story building by designing the individual functional areas within the units to be different heights: seen from the front, this staggering results in a rhythmic articulation of the overall site, and the structure of the building recalls the clay settlements of Asia.

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NE apartment Nakae Architects, Akiyoshi Takagi, Ohno Japan | Tokyo 2007

289 m² total floor area 8 units 28–50 m² floor area per unit 1–2 occupants per unit Similar interests can mean that spatial proximity is not perceived as oppressive but rather as enriching, as is the case with these row houses designed for motorcycle enthusiasts, which are arranged facing a small shared interior courtyard.

01 The interior courtyard is large enough to accommodate a motorcycle. 02 Model of the eight apartments: the curved interior walls support the loads and reinforce the building.

Site plan, scale 1:5,000

The lot is accessed from the main road via a small private lane that begins at the corner of the site and leads to the teardropshaped courtyard. The special character of this housing complex in the Suginami district of Tokyo can only be grasped from this entrance in the northeast. From all other sides, the NE Apartment, which was a collaboration between Nakae Architects, Akiyoshi Takagi Architects, and Ohno Japan, looks like a closed cube that sits as close to the neighboring buildings as possible. The entrances to the eight units are arranged along the teardrop-shaped cutout; some of them extend across two stories and others three. The building was developed for motorcycle enthusiasts: the individual units can open wide on the ground floor, offering residents a garage for their bikes. The structure is reinforced concrete and is supported by seven internal walls. The shell, by contrast, is a curtain wall, which means

Ground floor, second floor, third floor scale 1:250

03 Both entrance and garage: on the ground floor the facade can be opened almost entirely. 86

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Cross sections, scale 1:250

04 Exterior and interior walls meet at right angles toÂ the curved shell of the building. 05 The rooms are open facing the courtyard via ribbon windows of varied heights; on the outside the building presents a perforated facade.

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the openings can be arranged freely. For the courtyard side the architects chose ribbon windows of three different heights. Facing the neighboring buildings, there is a punched facade with just a few windows in a staggered arrangement. The exposed-concrete walls inside are slightly curved but designed in such a way that they always meet the exterior walls at nearly a right angle, which among other things makes it easier to furnish the apartments with standard-sized furniture. The architects specified a target audience for their design and adapted the floor plans to their needs. Because the apartments can be used flexibly, however, even those without motorcycles will like them. But it would benefit neighborly relationships if the apartments in this coherent unity were indeed rented to people who share a specific passion such as motorcycles.

Yuima-ru Nasu + New Office | Nasu 2011

3,528 m² total floor area 70 units 33–66 m² floor area per unit 1–2 seniors per unit The rapid demographic change in Japan demands solutions for housing for the elderly. This model project seeks to achieve collective life for seniors that takes into account the desire for relationships with neighbors as well as the desire for a private sphere and serenity.

01 Facilities such as the cafeteria create places for the residents to meet. 02 The buildings with individual residential units are combined into groups that together form a kind of small village.

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Statistics taken from Maren Godzik, “Japan und der demografische Wandel: Leben und Wohnen in einer der am schnellsten alternden Gesellschaften der Welt,” BAGSO-Nachrichten: Das Magazin der Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Senioren-Organi sationen, no. 2/2011: 47–48.

2 Yuima-ru is a term from the language of the original inhabitants of Okinawa, an island on the far southwestern end of Japan, which can be roughly translated as “mutual assistance, collaboration.”

Hardly any country is seeing demographic change progress as rapidly as Japan’s. Already today a fifth of the population is over sixty-five; prognoses presume that in twenty years this age group will have grown to more than a third. 1 Unlike the generations before them, the elderly can no longer necessarily count on living with their children and being taken care of by them. Already today more seniors are living alone or with their spouses than with their children’s families. How they want to spend the autumn of their lives is thus a central topic for many. One example of contemporary senior living is the Yuima-ru 2 housing complex in Nasu, in the Tochigi Prefecture, a model project by the Japanese government. The building complex is in the country – a response to the fact that more and more older people wish to move to more rural surroundings after a life spent working in the city. Moreover, precisely because nonurban regions are suffering the most from population decline as a result of demographic change, the influx of pensioners could prevent entire villages from being deserted.

1 – Daytime care center 2 – Cafeteria 3 – Library 4 – Multipurpose room 5 – Music room

The architects Kenji Seto and Sōjun Kondō of + New Office developed a village structure for this senior housing complex. Each

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Site plan, scale 1:1,200

03 Living around the garden: the residents can become active themselves and help design the flowerbeds. 04 The interiors of the apartments are characterized by traditional elements from the Japanese culture of housing, such as sliding doors, built-in cabinets, and translucent partitions.

of the residential units is part of a house; the houses, in turn, are part of several ensembles of buildings arranged around courtyards that together convey an aesthetic and structural unity. The buildings areÂ both constructed and paneled with wood from the region. Shared facilities such as a cafeteria, a library, a music room, a Âmultipurpose room, and a daytime care center are distributed throughout the complex, helping to initiate movement and encounters in a natural way. An arcade forms the transition between each courtyard and the private residential units that surround it; it also provides a kind of winter garden in the entry area to each home. The architects describe this zone as an engawadoma. The term is composed of two elements that characterize the traditional Japanese house: the engawa, the narrow veranda that runs around the house, and the doma, a hall with an earthen floor that is separated from the living area by a step. Hence this area mediates between inside and outside and separates the interior into a private area and a semipublic one. Residents can regulate the degree of openness vis-Ă -vis their neighbors. For this model project, future residents were integrated into the planning stage. In workshops they discussed their needs, evaluated the progress of construction, and established initial contacts with other residents and the locals. This was an excellent point of departure to turn this into a place for a truly communal autumn of life.

Trois Mitsuhiko Satō Architects | Kokubunji 2009

159 m² total floor area 3 units ca. 35 m² floor area per unit 1–2 occupants per unit Three staggered cubes with loft-like apartments join to create a residential tower whose unusual form provides each resident with a spacious, private outdoor space.

01 The terrace on the ground floor is more like an interior courtyard, given its boundaries on the side and the sparse planting; parking places are hidden by the screen on the left. 02 The apartments face multiple directions.

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Cross section, scale 1:200

Trois, a small multistory apartment building, lies in Kokubunji, a city in the conurbation around Tokyo. The borders between the communities are fluid, and Kokubunji is a little less densely populated, so that unlike in the capital there are open spaces to be found here and there. In this environment, the architect Mitsuhiko SatĹ? chose to establish a little distance from the neighbors in his design: He built the volume of three units, executed with exposed concrete on the outer walls, on a corner lot and left room on the north side for three parking spaces. This is a luxury, since street parking is not permitted in

Ground floor, second floor, and third floor, scale 1:400

03 The staggered arrangement of the volumes produces terrace-like open spaces above the neighborsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; apartments. 04 Placed lower: the ground floor apartment is below the level of the Âterrain.

Japan. In larger cities and the densely populated areas around them, residents often have to walk a long way to get to their cars. The three volumes are stacked irregularly, with each floor housing a loft-like unit. Unlike the typical one-room apartments in large Japanese cities, these homes are intended for people who either do not regard living alone or in a couple as a transition stage or place a certain value on housing in their lives. The staggered arrangement allows the units to profit from one another: the free projections serve as terraces or roofs for the unit above or below. Each unit’s private outdoor space faces a different direction, which reinforces the sense of living in one’s own home. The shape of the small tower does not make one suspect that there are two cores inside: the stairwell and the bathroom on each floor are the two constants around which the floor plans are developed. In contrast to Kumiko Inui’s Apartment I (see pp. 70–73), here it is the floor plan that dances around the two cores, rather than the core wandering in the building and shaping the floor plans.

Dancing Trees, Singing Birds Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP Architects | Tokyo 2007

685 m² total floor area 6 units ca. 55–160 m² floor area per unit 2–3 occupants per unit For well-to-do residents of Tokyo, having a weekend home in the country is a matter of good taste. The feeling of living in and with nature can, however, be produced in the city as well.

01 The Spa House enables its residents to bathe outdoors. 02 Urban jungle: an unbuilt slope with old trees makes the building seem close to nature despite its central location.

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Even if the photographs convey a different impression, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dancing Trees, Singing Birdsâ&#x20AC;&#x153; is indeed located in the middle of Tokyo. But the trees around it have grown so dense that the surrounding buildings in the Meguro District are largely obscured. Or at least they are if one knows how to arrange the individual units as skillfully as Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP Architects. The architects consistently allowed the design to be shaped by the surrounding trees. Before beginning construction, tree experts checked the condition of the roots, then the building was moved as close to the plants as possible without threatening their survival. 03

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03 The bright bathroom of the Tea House unit wraps around a tree. 04 The numerous bay windows allow the building to move as close to the trees as possible on the south side.

Cross section, scale 1:500

The building’s many projections and indentations resulted from simulations of growth and movement. Nakamura says that other architects proceed as if a lot is fundamentally empty, even though something certainly is there, and that was precisely what he wanted to work out with his designs. The building, paneled with Japanese cypress, houses six luxury rental apartments. The building is on the back of the lot and is accessed from the street via a cul-de-sac. A shared foyer on the ground floor distributes access to the stairwells to the individual units; two of the apartments on the upper story can also be accessed via private elevators. Nakamura developed each unit individually based on a theme: On the ground floor the Pool House and the Spa House are supplemented, respectively, by a pool and a bathing area that is open above; the Theater House has a two-story area that can be used as a home cinema. On the upper floor the Library House offers space for books on long, built-in shelves. By contrast, the Tea House allows the occupants to perform the tea ceremony in a transparent pavilion. On the very top sits the Terrace House, which offers room for receptions on an enormous roof terrace. The long sides of the apartments have bay windows and an nexes, which are attached to the living spaces like niches and are Cross section of facade, scale 1:100

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05 A built-in wall shelf in the Library House provides a place to store and display books and magazines. 06 Mirror elements make the rooms in the Spa House seem larger and the surrounding greenery look more lush.

Dark green – Pool House Violet – Spa House Yellow – Theater House Bright blue – Tea House Bright green – Library House Red – Terrace House

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Ground floor, second floor, third floor, scale 1:500

very close to the surrounding trees. On the short side facing southwest there are terraces integrated into the building on the ground floor and second floor; they extend the living space into the outdoors and also frame the view. The design turns an unprepossessing sloping lot into a kind of unspoiled paradise, though the architect has played with the risk that some of this quality will be lost if the surrounding buildings change and move closer to the property or trees on neighboring lots are felled.

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12 STUDIOLO CAt (C+A Tokyo) | Tokyo 2009

73.5 m² and 78 m² total floor area 12 units 10–16 m² floor area per unit 1 occupant per unit Floor space per person has been growing continuously in industrial nations for decades. In Japan, at least in large cities, a culture of living in small spaces has been growing in parallel with this.

01 On the top floor the rooms are also lit by a skylight. 02 The 12 Studiolo are divided between two volumes whose design is perceived as a unity.

Site plan, scale 1:2,000

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Kazuhiro Kojima and Kazuko Akamatsu’s 12 Studiolo provides an example of how to organize housing within the tiniest space. In two volumes with a base of around thirty square meters each, they found room for twelve tiny residential units. As a rule, less floor space means a lower rent; hence these minimum dwellings represent a solution for people who want to live affordably in the city, such as students or lowsalaried employees. Each of the two towers, which form a unified design, is accessed via a minicore of a half-spiral staircase. Each unit extends across two levels and is shaped as a continuous spatial module. Kojima and Akamatsu developed this Space Blocks Design Method in the 1990s and employed it for the first time in their Space Blocks Kamishinjō (1996). Because its modules are so tiny, 12 Studiolo is only somewhat comparable to the firm’s earlier buildings.

Fifth floor

Fourth floor

Third floor

With their reduced size, the twelve units are somewhat reminiscent of monastic cells. And the architects did indeed analyze traditional Japanese minimal spaces, such as tea pavilions in Kyoto, to apply to their design. They were looking for ideas Second floor

Ground floor, scale 1:250

03 In these minimal spaces, the private stairs are not just for access but also serve as all-purpose furniture. 04 View from the washroom toward the bed niche and upper levels (third floor, unit in magenta on plan); the steps lead to the bathtub. 106

Cross sections, scale 1:250

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about how to place partition walls and arrange windows, about which materials and lighting effects would ensure that a small space developed a certain magic. However, tearooms are designed to serve guests, not to provide long-term living space for one person. Hence such pavilions could scarcely serve as a model for functional issues. Inside, the apartments are characterized by a contrast of exposed concrete and white structured walls. Moreover, the architects had shelves installed at regular distances on the walls for the residents to mount equipment or use for storage. This makes furniture superfluous, and with just ten to sixteen square meters, there would not have been room for it anyway. “Find a blank space and extent in littleness” – under that motto the residents are supposed to

Exploded isometric drawing

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05 Standards are placed on the walls at regular intervals so that residents can mount storage shelves, for example. 06 Bathroom on top floor (light blue on the plan): Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not much room to move your legs when on the toilet, but you can shower with a view of the exterior.

aÂ ppropriate the twelve apartments like hermits do their little caves. Such an extreme reduction of living space seems to be marginal even in Japan; however, the careful design of the floor plan and space may help someone forget the lack of floor space for a while.

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Onagawa Container Temporary Housing Shigeru Ban Architects (VAN) | Onagawa 2011

5,671 m² total floor area 190 units 20–40 m² floor area per unit 1–5 occupants per unit Temporary housing after natural catastrophes should be affordable and available for the short term. When building this housing complex in Onagawa, the topographic context and the desire to make room for community entered the planning as well.

01 Facilities like this “studio” can be used by all the residents. 02 Container village on a baseball field: within two and a half months, temporary replacement apartments were constructed for 190 families.

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After the catastrophe of an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, there was demand for affordable short-term housing that could be made available quickly. As a rule, single-story prefabricated modules of wood or steel are employed. One problem, however, was posed by Japan’s topography: flat planes at sufficient altitude to place standard units were not available in many places. That was true, for example, of the municipality of Onagawa in the Miyagi Prefecture, a town with ten thousand residents where the tsunami destroyed around four thousand houses. One solution for this problem was provided by the Voluntary Architects’ Network (VAN), a network of architecture students founded by Shigeru Ban that uses architecture to support the victims of the catastrophe. Isometric drawing

The architects selected shipping containers as the basic module for this temporary housing colony and combined them into slab structures two to three stories tall. As a result, roughly 190 families found a new home in the relatively limited area of a baseball field – the municipality had decided to sacrifice this sports ground to the construction of emergency housing. The buildings are arranged in a checkerboard pattern: between each of the narrow containers is a “void” formed by the simple frame. This additional space is completed glazed on one short side, while the other side has the entrance to the apartments. The closed surfaces are clad with colorful fiber-cement panels. 112

03 Containers were used to build the community house as well. 04 Residential unit of 29 square meters: the furniture was built by students or donated by companies. Exploded isometric drawing

The entire colony was built in around two and a half months. In choosing the sizes of the apartments, the architects followed the dimensions on the government’s standard emergency housing: There are three units, measuring twenty, twenty-nine, and forty square meters. The smallest apartment was intended for one or two occupants; the middle one for three or four; and the largest for families with more than four members. In contrast to “traditional” emergency housing, the decision was made in Onagawa to design – and in some cases build – the furnishings for the apartment as well. VAN was hoping in this way to keep residents from purchasing standard furniture, for which there was scarcely room in the very narrow containers and which would therefore have been in the way.

Apartment types scale 1:400

Shared facilities were provided along with the housing: a large tent in the center functions as a market hall; there is also a community house for events and a studio, which can be used for classes, for example. VAN continued to follow the project even after completion and used surveys to try to determine the positive and negative experiences of the residents of this temporary housing so that this information could flow back into future planning.

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ALLEY HOUSE BE-FUN DESIGN + TAS-S | Tokyo 2012

161 m² total floor area 4 units ca. 40 m² floor area per unit 1–2 occupants per unit Complex urban structures as model: From a conventionally designed ground floor the spaces of these four row houses develop spirally upward around the building’s central axis.

01 On the top floor of every unit there is a stepped shelf; a ladder leads to the sleeping gallery.

Site plan, scale 1:500

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02 The building takes up the line of the existing buildings, which results in a small yard in front of the building. 03 The four apartments are articulated similarly: the kitchen is on the second floor in all the units.

Cross section, scale 1:250

From business center to the thicket of housing: From Kameido train station, Alley House is reached via various streets that become ever narrower and end up as a traditional structure of lanes. The blocks of houses frame a road that is sometimes barely wider than 1.80 meters, and they include a heterogeneous collection of small residences whose residents happily appropriate the lanes. Although the existing building line would have permitted moving closer to the street, the architects brought Alley House back so that the building forms a line with the other buildings on the block. The order of the neighborhood, which derives by chance from its chaotic juxtapositions, is thus taken up and continued. At the same time, the architects created a front yard that can be used to park bicycles, for example.

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The buildings of the neighborhood casually feature different colors. The surroundings are characterized by many different individual elements, such as flowerpots and bicycles placed in front of the houses; together with the architectural fabric, they produce an overall impression of many small parts. Its outward appearance integrates Alley House into this collage: The paneling on the facade of this structure based on wooden posts takes up different colors from the neighboring buildings and reproduces them at irregular intervals. The driveway, with its circular, planted beds continues in its own way the landscape of potted plants.

Central perspective

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04 Cleverly rotated: the living room of the northernmost unit on the ground floor (in green on the plan) faces southeast. 05 Stairway from the kitchen to the living room 06 Sleeping gallery and shelf on the top floor 04

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Fourth floor

Third floor

Second floor

The four doors facing the street seem almost mysterious to the passing viewer, since the floors above them do not continue to follow the type of a collective apartment building, and no staircases are apparent. The building was in fact developed for four households, but rather than arranging the rooms in a vertical sequence, as is usual with row houses, the architects developed the floor plan of the individual apartments like a spiral around the entire width of the lot. As a result, each unit faces at least three directions, so that the individual resident derives a feeling from the views outward and lighting that is reminiscent of a single-family home. The residents climb up to their homes via stairs that on the residential floors have a dimension like that of the street in front of the house. Along the way they present various views outward; the windows offer views of different neighboring buildings. According to the architects, the path through the house is intended to reflect the qualities of traditional lanes: oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own possessions become, like the neighborsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bicycles and plants, part of the overall picture.

Ground floor, scale 1:250

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Sakura Apartment Hitoshi Wakamatsu Architects | Tokyo 2011

1,042 m² total floor area 11 units 32–81 m² floor area per unit 1–5 occupants per unit This building looks like an organic structure to which the architect has assigned functions. Each apartment is composed of several spatial cells; the spaces in between can be appropriated by the residents .

01 On the top floor, the space in between is not completely covered; the spatial cells seem like bungalows. 02 From outside, it is difficult to say which areas belong together.

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The base of this six-story building on a slope recalls the foundation of a Japanese fortress: loose natural stone behind an expandedmetal grate makes the ground floor seem relatively closed vis-Ă -vis the street. On the second floor the metal elements continue as a fence around several narrow gardens. Sakura Apartment is located on a corner lot in the Meguro District of Tokyo. The reinforced-concrete structure appears to consist of seven towers that are cut through by horizontal slabs at regular intervals. This results in cells in which the architect Hitoshi Wakamatsu accommodated eleven residential units and access routes to them. The apartments look fragmented: each unit is composed of several spatial modules connected via glass corridors or indoor stairways. Each floor accommodates a maximum of three Âhouseholds. 122

03 In some places the building is more reminiscent of a vacation home than a multistory apartment building: view of the building from the roof of the northernmost volume. 04 Rounded corners and large openings define the interior of the spatial cells.

Sixth floor

The central area is not completely surrounded by apartments but rather runs to the edges of the building in a somewhat star-like form. As a result, despite the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great volume, the structure appears to be composed of many small parts and open to the outside. This area not only provides access but can also be used as a terrace by all the residents on the floor. Fifth floor

Between the cells, however, these areas are either separated by a transparent corridor or tend to be assigned to the adjacent unit.

Fourth floor

Third floor

The further up one goes, the larger and more comfortable the one- to three-story apartments become, and the brighter the areas in between. On the top floor the floor panel has been cut out so that sunlight can illuminate the floor below for general use, even close to the central elevator. The two highest units have galleries and a roof garden, respectively. Second floor

Inside the building, the built space and the space in between combine to form a residential landscape composed of areas clearly for private use, transition zones, and semipublic areas. The focus is not on the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s function but on its structure. The architecture was intended not just to serve the residents but also to open up new possibilities for living.

Ground floor, scale 1:750

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Alp Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office | Tokyo 2010

ca. 500 m2 total floor area 11 units 25–40 m² / 55–80 m² floor area per unit 1–3 occupants per unit A house like a landscape: Formulating the volume of the building on the model of a mountain chain results in residential units that differ inside and invite individuals to appropriate them.

01 View into the abyss: the individual units and the roof terrace are accessed by external stairways embedded in the canyon-like notches.

Site plan, scale 1:2,000

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The dark exposed concrete looms upward like a stone massif: Alp, as Akihisa Hirata calls this multistory apartment building in northern Tokyo, lies on a narrow street on a hill. Behind it extends a small park that belongs to the local Buddhist temple. Only to the west is there an immediately adjacent neighbor, and even that is a recent development. “We would like to rethink the architecture not as the act to roduce an area like a box, but as a folded surface created by p the movement of the ground,” as Hirata describes his design. Projections, indentations, and a complex landscape of roofs are intended to create a volume whose folds define the living space inside. The open access area, which runs through the center of the volume and thus seems a little like a ravine, also influences the design of the units: The diagonals of the steps are reflected inside some of the apartments and help to shape the space. The exterior forms the interior, as the interior forms the exterior, for example, as a result of the need to place the windows or to arrange access in a sensible way.

Ѝ Scheme for closed volume

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Scheme for divided volume

02 Dark concrete and folds make the building look like a massive rock when seen from the west, if not for the openings that point to life inside. 03 Access area on the second floor: cave-like indentations frame the entrances to the apartments.

Top view of roof

Third floor

Second floor

Ground floor, scale 1:500

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Cross section, scale 1:500

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Most of the eleven apartments are suitable primarily for singles; only two apartments, one on the ground floor and one on the third floor, have more spacious layouts. The latter even has a roof terrace that is accessed from the bathroom via an outdoor staircase. In a sense, Hirataâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design offers an alternative to a schematic architecture whose spaces are based on a notion of human needs decided by others. He does not know the future residents or their individual wishes but he does not want to submit to any purely functional dogma. The residents will be able to appropriate the living spaces created in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Alpâ&#x20AC;&#x153;-like caves.

04 The outer skins forms the interior space; this is particularly clear on the third floor. 05 On the second floor, by contrast, the steps to the apartments above form and articulate the spaces. 129

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Komatsunagi Terrace Mitsuhiko Satō Architects | Tokyo 2012

1,208 m² total floor area 11 units ca. 55–100 m² floor area per unit 1–4 occupants per unit This building developed for a building cooperative enables the residents to react flexibly to changes in their surroundings and within the family. The metallic shell is intended to be an interface between the private apartments and the city.

01 The metallic facade surrounds the climate shell like a semitransparent veil. 02 Beginning with the second floor, the perforated metal facade defines the volume of the building.

02 131

A shell of expanded metal and a ground floor largely closed off from the street make this building in the Setagaya District of Tokyo seem compact and unified. One begins to suspect that it was built for a building cooperative only after seeing the floor plans for apartments of many different types and layouts. The lattice shell with its regular openings sits in front of a continuous balcony that recalls an engawa, the veranda of Âtraditional Japanese houses. This area is more than just a private outdoor space; the air conditioner and boiler are located here (in Japan the building systems are almost always decentralized and used by each individual unit). The climate shell proper, a full-height glass facade, is attached to the balcony. The four maisonette apartments, which develop from the basement to the ground floor, do not have a grille in front; bushes planted on the edges of the lot block all too direct views in. The entry area, the corridor that provides access to the apartments, and the entrance to the central stairwell are arranged cross-like on the ground floor. On the upper floors the corridors run east-west and are largely open to the balconies. The top floor is a penthouse with a large roof terrace and can be reached via the central stairwell.

Penthouse

Fourth floor

Third floor

It was important to the clients that the floor plans be easily adaptable to changes in family relationships if necessary. For that Second floor

Ground floor, scale 1:750

03 132

Basement

04 03 Curtains further control the degree of transparency (in this case on the fourth floor). 04 The continuous balcony is reminiscent of an engawa, the veranda of traditional Japanese buildings.

reason, the architect chose a mixed construction: the reinforcedconcrete ceilings are primarily supported by steel columns; the loadbearing structure is reinforced in the facade area by diagonal struts. All the interior walls are therefore nonbearing and hence variable. This also permitted a continuous glass facade, which can be adapted to individual preferences with curtains. The residents can thus respond to changes in the neighborhood such as demolition and new buildings. When planning the building the architect and clients asked, among other things, how a multistory apartment building should relate to the outside in a dense residential area. The double shell can be seen as a compromise: from the street it is still clear that people live here but each resident can preserve his or her private sphere. SatĹ? interprets the expanded-metal facade as a kind of interface that mediates between the city and the private apartments.

133

134

Shakujii Pleats Makiko Tsukada Architects | Tokyo 2010

538.5 m² total floor area 6 units 68–97 m² floor area per unit 3–4 occupants per unit In the narrow canyons between the four volumes, interior and exterior are tightly interwoven. These in-between spaces provide access but are used privately, not collectively: the upper area is assigned to a different unit than the lower one.

01 Steps and layers: a complex landscape of steps spans out between the building volumes. 02 When the metal shutters are closed, the building resembles a fortification.

02 135

03 Between walls of the concrete bricks in the living areas, the canyon that provides access looks bright and light. 04 Single glass bricks are integrated into the solid Âmasonry around the entrance.

Cross section, scale 1:250

At first glance, Shakujii Pleats, in the Nerima District of Tokyo, looks like a conventionally articulated multistory apartment building. Four residential blocks appear to be accessed by three shared stairwells located between them. In fact, however, these stairs serve as an extension of the living space: the architect Makiko Tsukada has divided each of them between two households. Hence these areas are a mix of individual entry area and winter garden. The housing complex is somewhat reminiscent of a fortress: concrete blocks in two colors form a massive wall, conveying stability and durability. The openings can be closed by hand with large shutters, which are similar in color to the concrete blocks. Tsukada leaves it to the residents whether and to what extent they want to open their private spaces to the outside world. But the building does not look off-putting even when all the shutters are closed. The scale of the wall, the texture of the blocks, and the stripe pattern resulting from the two colors of the concrete guarantee that. 03 136

04 137

06 05 The interim space, which is partly open on top, also catches the light â&#x20AC;Ś

Third floor

06 â&#x20AC;Ś which benefits the basement in particular. 07 In combination with wooden furniture and tatami mats, the walls seem only half as rough.

Second floor

Ground floor, scale 1:500

Basement

138

08 Along the way from room to room, residents experience different levels of brightness and lighting moods.

The surroundings play only a subordinate role for this ensemble; the architect developed maisonettes that will retain their qualities no matter how the neighborhood changes. The spaces in between mediate to two sides each, with the apartments they join located diagonally from each other: the lower unit accessed from this area is assigned to the part of the building to the north, while the upper unit extends from the stairwell to the south. There are special solutions for both ends of the building: on the south end, there is a garage on the ground floor; on the north end, there is a three-story unit. The residents of the latter unit and of the maisonettes on the upper floors have a roof terrace. With her design, Tsukada is primarily seeking to ensure a living environment with as little disturbance from the neighbors and the surroundings as possible. The individual stairs in the spaces in between are also cleanly demarcated; nevertheless, the openness of these areas shared by two parties permits contact between residents. By choosing â&#x20AC;&#x153;permanenceâ&#x20AC;? as its defining motto, moreover, she contrasts Shakujii Pleats with the rather shoddily constructed buildings in the surroundings, which are thus particularly at risk of being demolished.

08 139

140

Applause Azabu SALHAUS | Tokyo 2012

442.5 m² total floor area 8 units 20–42 m² floor area per unit 1–2 occupants per unit Buildings in Japan are far more likely to be torn down rather than renovated. But building with the existing fabric is slowly becoming more important, for example, with residential architecture, when the mono tonous remnants of the years of economic boom are transformed into contemporary urban building blocks.

01 The relief-like ceramic facade ensures an interplay of light and shadow that enlivens the skin. 02 Current Japanese building codes would have granted a new building less floor area, which protects the existing fabric from demolition.

02 141

Five floors, a brown ceramic facade facing the street, a strict grid on the facade: this building from 1978 is a typical example of the rental apartment buildings produced after the Second World War when the Japanese economy was booming. This building has long since lost its raison d’être in its central location in Azabujūban, in the Minato District of Tokyo. As a rule, the owners in such cases insist on demolishing the building to make room for new, profitable apartments. But even in Japan there is an effort to preserve existing buildings by exempting them from new codes: a new building in accordance with today’s codes would have to make do with considerably less rentable floor area. Consequently, the architects chose to hollow out the building, adding an elevator and renovating the facades. The building now presents a completely new face to the street. A reinforced-concrete Site plan, scale 1:2,500

Fifth floor of existing building

Second to fourth floors of existing building

03 142

Ground floor of existing building

Fifth floor

Third and fourth floor

Second Floor

Ground Floor, scale 1:500

03 Before the reconstruction: the use of the building and the way the spaces belong together are clearly evident. 04 After the renovation: the new facade is diversely articulated and leaves open what the building conceals. 05 Bright ceramic elements and tiles make the entry seem homey.

05 143

Cross section, scale 1:250

06 144

07 06 The sublayers were left rough everywhere, contrasting with the refurbished surfaces. 07 In Japan, apartments with an integrated home workplace are called SOHO. In the Applause Azabu, this type of apartment is assigned to the western half of the building (third and fourth floors).

curtain wall that looks like a passe-partout has been placed in front. The new front gives depth to the balconies; the window openings continue around the corners. Small square ceramic elements arranged like a relief were used as cladding, structuring the facade. The two side facades of reinforced concrete were retained and painted dark with water-repellent paint. Inside there are three different types of floor plans after the renovation: three standard units with two rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom; two studios with combined living and sleeping area; and three units with a small office space (SOHO). The planners were responding to the increased need â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in Japan as well â&#x20AC;&#x201C; for people who telecommute or are self-employed. The commercial spaces, which were already part of the original building, were retained, as was a common roof terrace on the top floor. The interiors of the apartments are distinguished by oak parquet floors and various wooden built-ins. Here too it is clear this is a renovated building: the architects chose not to recover the exposed joists. Because they were not originally intended to be exposed, the concrete is spotty and rough. The contrast makes these luxuriously refurbished apartments look like lofts in former industrial neighborhoods.

145

146

Static Quarry IKIMONO ARCHITECTS | Takasaki 2011

554 m² total floor area 8 units 40–70 m² floor area per unit 1–4 occupants per unit A meditative interior courtyard regulates the distance between the units. Terraces, balconies, and roof gardens enable the residents to make themselves at home both inside and outside.

01 Nearly all the openings face the shared courtyard. 02 From outside the building looks as if ashlar had been cut from a solid block at irregular intervals.

02 147

A quiet garden in the center: The row houses of the Static uarry in Takasaki, in Gunma Prefecture, are grouped around a Q courtyard. Gravel and rocks recall the stone gardens of Zen Buddhism – were it not for the looming bamboo plants arranged at regular distances that enliven the exterior space.

Site plan, scale 1:5,000

For the architect Takashi Fujinō, however, it is not the garden but rather the theme of neighborhood that is the focus of the design. His colony of row houses is intended to function like a small city in which everyone can find the balance of privacy and social

03 The residents reach the roof terrace from the balconies via a simple climbing construction composed of handgrips. 04 View into the apartment on the northeast corner on the second floor: on the left, two steps lead to the balcony; on the right, the bathroom sits in a box. 04 148

Top view of roof

Cross section, scale 1:250

iÂntegration that is appropriate for him or her. The background, among other things, is the constantly growing number of single households in Japan, which ensures that the everyday life of the individual is marked by extremes: in their own apartments, as a rule, they are maximally sheltered from the outside world, while in urban space they are surrounded by a mass of unknown people.

Second floor

The architect compares the volume that brings together the eight row houses to a quarry, since the empty spaces of the site of bright exposed concrete look like they have been cut out of the volume. Nearly all of the windows are facing inward toward the shared courtyard. Its crunching gravel and sparing design do not exactly invite one to spend time there; rather, the garden is more like a neutral â&#x20AC;&#x153;spacerâ&#x20AC;? between the residential units. The neighbors are not supposed to see one another as disturbances but rather as welcome surroundings: they present their individuality to one another by the way they design and use their terraces and loggias. The large openings on the ground floor mean that even passersby can catch a glimpse of the courtyard. The residents of the row houses have a private outdoor space on each floor: on the ground floor there is a parking place that can also be used as a workspace; on the second floor there is a loggia; and at the top there is a roof terrace. The white concrete forms a calm, neutral background for living, which takes place both indoors and outdoors.

Ground floor, scale 1:500

149

150

Apartment in Kamitakada Takeshi Yamagata Architects | Tokyo 2008

381 m² total floor area 9 units 30–60 m² floor area per unit 1–2 occupants per unit An ensemble of four volumes takes up the small scale of its surroundings. On the ground floor, thanks to a combination of two principles of articulation, the exterior and the interior enter into a close relationship.

01 White fences the height of one floor delimit the private open spaces of the residents from the common areas. 02 The buildings take up the intricate structure of the surroundings.

02 151

Site plan, scale 1:3,000

152

Ground floor, second floor, scale 1:500

03 Every unit is accessed by a separate entrance; often there is a stairway or private garden as an entry area.

The architects responded to the site in the Setagaya District of Tokyo characterized by single-family homes with a small-scale solution: Rather than a single large volume, they created four volumes with nine residential units, each with its own entrance. Five of these rental units are accessed from the street and the others from a semipublic area that snakes around the property in an S-shape. The individual volumes are two to four floors tall and are slightly staggered on the property. One characteristic feature is the design of the ground floor, where Yamagata introduced fences following curved lines as an additional element of articulation. They demarcate a private outdoor space for each of the ground-floor 153

Cross sections, scale 1:500

04 154

04 On the ground floor the interior walls represent the continuation of the curved fences and thus produce new spatial connections (unit depicted in bright green on the plan). 05 Transparent walks on the ground floor connect the spaces divided by the different volumes (unit depicted in bright blue on the plan).

aÂ partments. Inside, these lines continue as drywall, creating the impression that the fences penetrate the outer walls of the boxes. This results in apartments that feature not only curved interior walls but also very unconventional layouts: several units even extend to the next volume via corridors. In contrast to the upper floors, which have somewhat less spectacular, loft-like apartments and maisonettes, the ground floor is very transparent to the exterior and has only the expanded-metal fences for privacy. The volumes and fences are connected by horizontal braces between the ground floor and second floor, which stabilizes the overall structure in the case of an earthquake. Each of the two maisonette apartments that extend from the third to the fourth floor has a generous terrace on the roofs of the two lower volumes. The diversity of floor plans, separate access, and the spatial lines produce individual apartments that offer singles and young couples an alternative to living in single-family homes.

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+ NEW OFFICE / Kenji Seto, Sōjun Kondō Daisan-Hachiai Building 1F 534 Tsurumaki-chō, Waseda, Shinjuku-ku Tokyo, 162-0041 Phone +81-3-6380-3634 Fax +81-3-6380-3635 plusnewoffice.com

GO HASEGAWA & ASSOCIATES Gaien Building 5F 2-18-7 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku Tokyo, 150-0001 Phone +81-3-3403-0336 Fax +81-3-3403-0337 www.hsgwg.com

A STUDIO / Ayano Uchimura Yaraicho Terrace 101, Yaraicho 37, Shinjuku-ku Tokyo, 162-0805 Phone +81-3-5206-5524/+81-3-3266-9971 Fax +81-3-3266-9965 a-st.net

HIROSHI NAKAMURA & NAP ARCHITECTS 5-25-7-2F Komozawa, Setagaya-ku Tokyo, 154-0012 Phone +81-3-6805-4051 Fax +81-3-6805-4075 www.nakam.info

AKIHISA HIRATA ARCHITECTURE OFFICE NC-Bldg. 2F, 6-6-22 Minami-aoyama, Minato-ku Tokyo, 107-0062 Phone +81-3-3409-1455 Fax +81-3-3409-1458 www.hao.nu

HITOSHI WAKAMATSU ARCHITECTS & ASSOCIATES FW Bldg. 101, 7-16-3 Fukasawa, Setagaya-ku Tokyo, 158-0081 Phone +81-3-5706-0531 Fax +81-3-5706-0537 www.hwaa.jp

AKIYOSHI TAKAGI & ASSOCIATES 1711-1-103 Aritamaminami-machi Higashi-ku, Hamamatsu-shi Shizuoka, 431-3122 www.ataa.jp

IKIMONO ARCHITECTS / Takashi Fujino 323-1 Kaizawa-machi, Takasaki-shi Gunma, 370-0042 sites.google.com/site/ikimonokenchiku

BE-FUN DESIGN Tsuyoshi Shindo, Tsutomu Hasegawa Be-Fun Building, 5-56-4 Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku Tokyo, 151-0053 Phone +81-6423-2980 Fax +81-6423-2981 www.be-fun.com CAt / C+A TOKYO Kazuko Akamatsu, Kazuhiro Kojima 4F 1-20-5 Ebisu-nishi, Shibuya-ku Tokyo, 150-0021 Phone +81-3-5489-8264 Fax +81-3-5458-6117 www.c-and-a.co.jp 156

AKIRA KOYAMA + KEY OPERATION INC. / ARCHITECTS 4F Doors Bldg., 3-19-10 Takaban, Meguro-ku Tokyo, 152-0004 Phone +81-3-5724-0061 Fax +81-3-5724-0062 www.keyoperation.com KOMADA ARCHITECTS’ OFFICE Takeshi Komada, Yuka Komada Nishikasai apartments 401 7-29-10 Nishikasai , Edogawa-ku Tokyo, 134-0088 Phone +81-3-5679-1045 Fax +81-3-5679-1046 www.komada-archi.info

MAKIKO TSUKADA ARCHITECTS 6-12-15 Shimoshakujii, Nerima-ku Tokyo, 177-0042 Phone +81-3-5372 7584 Fax +81-3-5372 7862 makikotsukada-architects.jp

SALHAUS Masashi Hino, Mari Tochizawa, Motoki Yasuhara 1-4-1-606 Higashi, Shibuya-ku Tokyo, 150-0011 Phone / Fax +81-3-3498-4222 salhaus.com

MITSUHIKO SATŌ ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATES Satō Mitsuhiko 2-15-15-4F Takanawa, Minato-ku Tokyo, 108-0074 Phone: +81-3-5795-4052 Fax +81-3-5795-4053 www.msaa.jp

SHIGERU BAN ARCHITECTS / VOLUNTARY ARCHITECTS’ NETWORK (VAN) 5-2-4 Matsubara, Setagaya Tokyo, 156-0043 Phone +81-3-3324-6760 Fax +81-3-3324-6789 www.shigerubanarchitects.com

NAKAE ARCHITECTS / Yuji Nakae Karasawa Bldg 3F, 1-3-4 Momoi, Suginami-ku Tokyo, 167-0034 Phone +81-3-6913-5762 Fax +81-3-6913-5763 nakae-a.jp

SHINICHIRŌ IWATA ARCHITECT 3-1-1201, Toyo 2-chome, Koto-ku Tokyo, 135-0016 www.iwata-arch.com

OFFICE OF KUMIKO INUI / Kumiko Inui 3-57-6-303 Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku Tokyo, 151-0053 Phone +81-3-3303-2971 Fax +81-3-3373-2972 www.inuiuni.com OHNO JAPAN / Hiroshi Ohno Royal Mansion 304, 1-32-5 Uehara, Shibuya-ku Tokyo, 151-0064 Phone +81-3-5452-3180 Fax +81-3-5452-3181 www.ohno-japan.com ON DESIGN PARTNERS/ Osamu Nishida Utoku building No. 405 6-85 Benten street, Naka-ku, Yokohama Kanagawa, 231-0007 Phone +81-45-650-5836 Fax +81-45-650-5837 www.ondesign.co.jp

SOU FUJIMOTO ARCHITECTS Ichikawa Seihon building 6F 10-3 Higashienoki-cho, Shinjuku-ku Tokyo, 162-0807 Phone +81-3-3513-5401 Fax +81-3-3513-5402 www.sou-fujimoto.net SPATIAL DESIGN STUDIO / Satoko Shinohara Yaraicho Terrace 101, Yaraicho 37, Shinjuku-ku Tokyo, 162-0805 Phone +81-3-3266-9971 Fax +81-3-3266-9965 homepage2.nifty.com/sds TAKESHI YAMAGATA ARCHITECTS 2-3-2-3F Koenji-minami, Suginami-ku Tokyo, 166-0003 Phone +81-3-3313-4103 Fax +81-3-3313-4104 www.t-yamagata.jp

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Authors Claudia Hildner Claudia Hildner was born in Munich in 1979 and studied architecture at the Technische Universität München and the University of Tokyo. Since 2007 she has been working as a freelance architectural journalist, writing many essays for professional publications. Until 2009 she was a member of the editorial staff of the e-magazine for the website german-architects.com, and until 2012 she was editor of the architectural journal Metamorphose. She has contributed to several books as author and/or editor. Her most recent book, Small Houses: Contemporary Japanese Dwellings, was published by Birkhäuser (2011). The publication was preceded by an extended research visit in Tokyo. www.childner.de

Evelyn Schulz Evelyn Schulz is professor of Japanese studies at the Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversität in Munich. Her work focuses on the literature and culture of modern Japan. Her research is dedicated to, among other subjects, the urbanist discourse there, which has recently included strategies for deceleration and how to represent it in the media.

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Bibliography Arch+ 208, Tokio: Die Stadt bewohnen. Issue 8/2012. Ashihara, Yoshinobu. The Hidden Order: Tokyo through the Twentieth Century. Tokyo, 1989; orig. pub. as Kakureta chitsujo: Nijūisseiki no toshi ni mukatte. Tokyo, 1986. Atelier Bow-Wow: Behaviorology. New York, 2010. Brumann, Christoph, and Schulz, Evelyn: Urban Spaces in Japan: Cultural and Social Perspectives. London/New York, 2012. Cybriwksy, Roman A.: Roppongi Crossing: The Demise of a Tokyo Nightclub District and the Reshaping of a Global City. Athens/Georgia, 2011. Enders, Siegfried RCT: Japanische Wohnformen und ihre Veränderung. Hamburg, 1979. Fujimoto, Sou: Primitive Future. Contemporary Architect’s Concept Series 1. Tokyo, 2008. Godzik, Maren: “Japan und der demografische Wandel. Leben und Wohnen in einer der am schnellsten alternden Gesellschaften der Welt,” in: BAGSO-Nachrichten. Das Magazin der Bundesarbeitsgemein schaft der Senioren-Organisationen, Issue 2/2011. Hildner, Claudia: Small Houses. Contemporary Dwellings in Japan. Basel, 2011. Hisashige, Tetsunosuke: Nihon-ban surō shiti: Chiiki koyū no bunka, fūdo o ikasu machizukuri. Tokyo, 2008. Hohn, Uta: Stadtplanung in Japan: Geschichte – Recht – Praxis – Theo rie. Dortmund, 2000. JA The Japan Architect, “Redefining Collectivity.” Issue 78/2010. Kitayama, Koh et al.: Tokyo Metabolizing. Tokyo, 2010. Kurokawa, Kishō: Toshi kakumei: Kōyū kara kyōyū e. Tokyo, 2006. Maak, Niklas: „Japonisiert euch!“, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, No. 43, 25.10.2009. Morse, Samuel C.: Reinventing Tokyo: Japan’s Largest City in the Artistic Imagination. Amherst, 2012.

Nihon Kenchiku Gakkai: Seikatsukei: Mijikana keikan kachi no hakken to machizukuri. Tokyo, 2009. Nishimura, Yukio (Ed.): Toshibi. Toshi keikan shisetsu no genryū to sono tenkai. Kyoto, 2005. Nishiyama, Uzō: Nihon no sumai (I): Shinjūtaku rensai 1966.1–1968.6. Tokyo, 1975 Okamoto, Satoshi: Edo Tōkyō no roji: Shintai kankaku de saguru ba no miryoku. Tokyo, 2006. Oono [Ohno], Hidetoshi (Ed.): Shurinkingu Nippon: Shukushō suru toshi no mirai senryaku. Tokyo, 2008. Radović, Darko: Another Tokyo: Places and Practices of Urban Resist ance. Tokyo, 2008. Radović, Darko, and Boontharm, Davisi (Ed.): Small Tokyo. Tokyo, 2012. Schmidtpott, Katja: Nachbarschaft und Urbanisierung in Japan, 1890–1970. Munich, 2009. Sorensen, André: The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-first Century. London/New York, 2004. Sorensen, André, and Funck, Carolin (Ed.): Living Cities in Japan: Citizen’s movements, machizukuri and local enviroment. London, 2007. Suzuki, Hiroshi: Nihon konpakuto shitī: Chiiki junkan-gata toshi no kōchiku. Tokyo, 2007. Ueda, Atsushi, and Tabata, Osamu (Ed.): Roji kenkyū: Mō hitotsu no toshi no hiroba. Tokyo, 2013. Usugi, Kazuo et al. (Ed.): Roji ni manabu seikatsu kūkan no saiseijutsu. Tokyo, 2010. Watanabe, Makoto Shin, and Kinoshita, Yoko: Shuugoujuutaku wo yunitto kara kangaeru / Japanese Housing since 1950. Tokyo, 2007. Yazaki, Takeo: Social Change and the City in Japan: From Earliest Times Through the Industrial Revolution. Tokyo, 1968.

Credits Cover: Ken’ichi Suzuki, Chiba p. 12, 23: Evelyn Schulz, Munich p. 14: Claudia Hildner, Munich p. 15, 34–39, 48–51: Iwan Baan, Amsterdam p. 16–17: bpk / Museum für Asiatische Kunst, SMB / Jürgen Liepe p. 18: Robert Andreas Drude, Munich p. 20: Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) (Japanese, 1797-1858). Nihonbashi, Clearing After Snow, No. 1 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 5th month of 1856. Woodblock print, Image: 13 3/8 x 8 3/4 in. (34 x 22.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Anna Ferris, 30.1478.1 p. 24: Mori Building Co., Ltd. p. 25: „Tokyo Urban Ring,” Koh Kitayama Studio, Y-GSA / Yokohama Graduate School of Architecture, Yokohama National University p. 28–31, 32 bottom, 33, 114–119: BE-FUN DESIGN, Tokyo / Hiroyuki Hirai p. 32 top: BE-FUN DESIGN, Tokyo p. 40–43, 120–123, 134, 136–139: Ken’ichi Suzuki, Chiba p. 44–47: ON design partners, Yokohama / Kōichi Torimura p. 52–57, 124–129: Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office / Toshiyuki Yano

p. 58–63: Tarō Hirano, Tokyo p. 64–69: Toshihiro Sobajima, Tokyo p. 70–72, 98–103: Daici Ano, Tokyo p. 74–79: KEY OPERATION INC./ARCHITECTS / Toshihiro Sobajima p. 80–83, 90–93: Ippei Shinzawa, Saitama p. 84–89: Hiro Sakaguchi, Tokyo p. 94–97: Mitsuhiro Satō Architects & Associates, Tokyo p. 104–109: Hiroshi Ueda, Tokyo p. 110–113: Hiroyuki Hirai, Tokyo p. 130–133: Mitsuhiro Satō Architects & Associates, Tokyo / Hiroshi Ueda p. 137: Makiko Tsukada Architects, Tokyo / Shinkenchiku-sha p. 140, 143 top, 145: Toshiyuki Yano p. 141, 143 bottom, 144: Makoto Yoshida, Tokyo p. 142: SALHAUS, Tokyo p. 146–149: IKIMONO ARCHITECTS, Takasaki / Takashi Fujino p. 150, 154: Takeshi Yamagata Architects, Tokyo / Daici Ano p. 151: Takeshi Yamagata Architects, Tokyo / Takeshi Yamagata p. 152, 155: Takeshi Yamagata Architects, Tokyo / Shinkenchiku-sha

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Claudia Hildner Future Living, Collective Housing in Japan Translation: Steven Lindberg Copy editing: Keonaona Peterson Project management: Katharina Kulke Layout, cover design, and typography: Björn Maser, Stuttgart, www.minimalist.cn Pre Press: Florian Höch, Stuttgart, www.hoech.net

Bibliographic information published by the German National Library The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained. This book is also available in a German language edition (ISBN 978-3-03821-627-8) © 2014 Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel P.O. Box 44, 4009 Basel, Switzerland Part of De Gruyter Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF ∞ Printed in Germany ISBN 978-3-03821-668-1 987654321