KANAGAWA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Junya Ishigami + Associates

Undefined Abstractness and Amenable Spaces

This is a studio/workplace constructed on the Kanagawa Institute of Technology campus in the suburbs of Tokyo.
The client wanted this structure to be a place where students could work on diverse self-initiated projects to make things, and to also have a high public capacity, as it would be open for use by local children.

With regard to the flexibility this building required, I saw little need to tailor sections of the plan very differently according to the various programs it would house, as each of the individual spaces would necessarily be specialized to some extent. Then, to ensure that users would be have the freedom to alter the spaces to meet different needs within a reasonably short time period, it began to make more sense to me to pursue flexibility in the relations between adjoining places, and in the way various spaces are connected with each other. This view led to the thinking that some soft, ambiguous kind of borders could be invented by raising pillars in a random fashion.

To be specific, I wanted to provide no earthquake-resistant walls, but make this building work on just an ensemble of slight pillars of varying proportions. What shape the sections would be, the coordinates and the angles of the pillars would be adjusted by the millimeter. How “densely set” should the pillars be? Resultant spaces would be best open toward which directions and to what extent? The studies we did to examine these issues became quite extensive. We did models in numerous scales ranging from small to extremely large. Sketches were made with the plan depicted in dots, to explore just what kind of spaces would exist between pillars. Studies of the plan were done with a program written for this project on an special CAD. We had an Excel program created to do trial calculations and give us general ideas on the structural soundness, and so on.

All these were carried out simultaneously throughout, and in the end we were able to arrive at a structure that stood on 305 pillars, almost none of which had identical sections or angles. At the same time, borders between individual places emerged, as a result of these pillars.

Even as I, the architect, am creating the space deliberately and with clear intent, I am not the one who can tell you what determined the decisions made. Is the basis structure, function, or design? I had hoped for this, for even the borders between such bases to become indistinct.
In fact I would say that in an ideal building the pillars would have the same presence or outward bearing, and be formed on the same dimension as, the surroundings, the furniture and the greenery. I was hoping, by creating all elements equally strong in presence–as well as possible–that a very generous and productive degree of flexibility could be achieved.

I was interested, I would say now, in the promise held by a kind of abstractness having nothing to do with the abstractness that we consider a property of diagrams and such.

Junya Ishigami

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Junya Ishigami+associates

BIOGRAPHY:

Junya Ishigami

Born in Kanagawa prefecture in 1974. Masters degree in architecture and planning, Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.

Worked in the architectural firm, Kazuyo Sejima and Associates from 2000 to 2004. Established junya.ishigami + associates in 2004.

Designed the Lexus automobile exhibition space at Milano Salone in 2004, displaying his low chair and round table, which were acquired by the Pompidou Centre.

Submitted small garden of row house to SD Review of 2005 and received the SD Prize.

Submitted table to the Kirin Art Project of 2005 and received the Kirin Prize.

Table shown at the Basel Art Fair by Gallery Koyanagi in 2006 and acquired by the Israel Museum.

First prize in residential architecture project sponsored by the Tokyo Electric Power Company.

Exhibited balloon and little gardens in SPACE FOR YOUR FUTURE at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo in 2007.

Designed KAIT Studio for the Kanagawa Institute of Technology in 2008.

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