University of San Carlos

This is the second version of Aqua scape. The first-version had completed as the first prototype of Whole Plastic Architecture. Aqua scape was a soft and boneless architecture. Aqua-scape The Orangery version has a double skin system although the first version was a single skin. If it is called that the first-version was boneless like a jellyfish, it is been able to say the Orangery version is like a small shrimp because it is wrapped by transparent soft shell. The first-version of Aqua scape in Japan 2006 was floating on the water, however this is floating on the grass.

This is a temporary Japanese tearoom exhibited in Echigo-tsumari Art Triennale 2018 and has a nested structure with two-tatami space embedded in ten foot square. In this exhibition, architects were asked to respond to the theme of how to overcome the concept of homogeneous space that was dominant in the 20th century. The skeleton was designed using the random pattern which was called Voronoi Division to distort homogeneous space. And it was proposed that the architecture with a large number of holes what could be opened and closed as needed to communicate with the outside like a living thing.

This house has been renovated mainly on the first floor because 18 years the completion. The renovation required that the existing kitchen area, consisting of the kitchen, breakfast corner, and food storage, be changed to a space that can be used for various purposes. In order to respond to this demand, the food storage and corridors were eliminated, making the entire space one room wide, and the sink was changed from a wall-mounted type to an island type, making it a more space centered on the kitchen unit. It has been reborn as a calm and cozy room because it is covered with a wooden finish.

This home was designed for an art appreciator and amateur artist who wanted a “house like an art museum”. Planned with careful consideration for air circulation as well as for the harsh, snowy climate of the Japan Sea coast, the structure is composed of white boxes of varying scale that frame spaces like pictures. One of the main concepts is 'Seamless Spatial Composition'. You can circulate through the spaces in this home looking at the owner’s collection of artwork just as if you were passing through galleries in a museum.

Big Furniture Like a Cave

This is the award-winning project won the Grand Prize of Art in Container International Competition. My idea is to hollow out the volume inside a container in order to build amorphous space like a cave. It is made of only plastic material. About 1000 sheets of the soft plastic material of 10-mm thickness were cut down in contour line form and were laminated like stratum.
This is not only art but also big furniture. Because all the portions are soft like a sofa, and person who enter into this space can relax by finding the place suitable for the form of its own body.