| Fragmented
screen breathed
On the east
of the site, the elevated road joint between Osaka and Kyoto where the
JR Tokaido line is crossing from the west. It is to be seen a widely
spreading switchyard on the same direction of the elevated road. The
vicinity of the site is an eclectic gathering from small to medium size
of factories, warehouses, trade facilities and housings forming which
is the mixed landscape of architectural typologies.
The client is a company holder who is running
an experiment about the safety of medicine by planning and developing
tools and equipment for medical purposes. The requested program was
about the reconstruction of the factory by giving two different options.
Firstly, the completion of the existing part of the building and then
the construction of the whole part of the program and design was expected.
The first floor is divided into conference room,
reception office management office and warehouse. On the second and
the third floors, there are gathering functional spaces like a production
spaces as the fabrication department and development department which
are vertically joined as a "rift" system that break the frontier
between the two floors. The fourth floor was allotted to the one room
with a large meeting space which can be responded to the office for
design research and the development and various seminars and meetings.
The building body is covered with a delicate membrane
constituted of aluminum louvers in order to avoid showing the disgusting
clustered pipes. Concerning the maintenance ease, the louver aperture
ratio and the space behind those offer a proper access to the pipes
system.
The reconstruction was also an experimental way to reduce as much as
possible the impact on the neighborhood of the intimidating volume of
the uninteresting factory.
To attain to this result, the louver's angles, and horizontal or vertical
directions are directed by randomized mathematical rules.
Some of the horizontally directed louvers are
reflecting the moving clouds in the blue sky or the cars light crossing
the street into the night. By moving the point of view, by looking at
some of the vertically directed louvers, the segmented perception of
the neighborhood's image is changing. By reflecting the changing nature
and vicinity scene of the building, this effect is fragmenting the building
and his environment perception and this while preserving a form of human
presence feeling.
The same principle goes for the void "light
court" linking the relaxation spaces on the third and fourth floors.
By using the glass screen inserted into the verticals and horizontals
openings, the image of the nature enters into the inside of the building.
The glass screens take, transform and bring a sort of virtual image
of the everyday life from the outside into the monotony filled inner
space of the factory.
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