Design
Report
The proposal seeks to address not only the epidemic sprawl of
Japan's urban fabric [and the corresponding environmental
pressures] but also the endemic digitalization of the Japanese
metacity. While the physical City of history was once constructed
around the 'Gate' and the 'Port', the telephysical metacity is now
reconstructed around the 'Tele-Port' and the 'Window'; around the
screen and the time slot. The physical horizon has been augmented
by the square and utterly thin horizon of the digital screen.
question.
The Tokyo Cornubation is the world's largest
metropolitan area and yet, aside from the Downtown area, is
paradoxically both chaotic in physicallity and sterile in
character. Due to the high land prices and strict zoning laws,
residential districts are located hours away from the workplace.
This marginalises the home and as a result marginalises family
life.
To counter this, the proposal is a lightweight and reproducible
pattern that can be adopted in a number of situations, from an
opportunistic siting in a disused downtown car lot, to a more
conventional stacked arrangement on a more substancial gap site.
The intention being, in both instances, to exploit the self
contained and prefabricated nature of the House in order to site it
closer to working areas. Relative energy self-sufficency is a
requirement for such a House but it is also an ecological
imperative, given the rapid expansion of our Urban areas. By
utilizing the actual building fabric itself, the skin and the shell
form, the importing of energy into the house to provide artificial
heating, cooling and lighting is minimized. Each House is a power
station in its own right.
Both conceptually and diagrammatically the House is the
combination of two discrete components. Living areas within an open
and reconfigurable Shell Form are held aloft by a stackable mass
concrete Service Core. The kitchen and dining area joins the two
volumes. As the function, which embodies the most overlap in terms
of occupancy and duration between the three members of the family,
this is the principle shared space of the House. Regardless of the
configuration of other spaces within the Shell Form, this mutual
'cultural plaza' is the programmatic centre of gravity for the
house
Utilising a series of diaphanous layers akin to Shoji screens,
the interior of the shell form can be manipulated by the occupant
family to incorporate a number of functions and provide a number of
discrete spaces. Corresponding to predetermined factory layouts,
housed within the Shell Form are low wattage LED projectors. Taking
the place of conventional screens and providing all the information
access for the occupants, imagery and data is projected onto the
surface of the screens. exchange.
More substantial boundaries between spaces can be created by
overlaying a number of screens; providing environmental, acoustic
and visual separation. When projections ore cast onto these
'layered' surfaces, the infra-thin surface of the projected image
is given an apparent volumetric depth in space. This staccato
overlapping of imagery becomes the defining visual barrier between
spaces.
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