+81 Gallery + Lab / Upsetters Architects

Jul 2010

By Amber P — Filed under: Interiors , Japan, Upsetters Architects

Architects: Upsetters Architects
Location: Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan
Project Area: 52.7 sqm
Project Year: 2010
Photographs: Yusuke Wakabayashi

floor plan

“+81” runs “+81 Gallery +Lab” based on its concept “capsule-concept-gallery”. We proposed creating each of “+81 Gallery +Lab” like putting a box on and according to the existing environment so that they can start the gallery all over the world with the mobile “capsule”.

concept model

In general, it can be said that there are two types of relationship between a new space and its surrounding environment: adapting and separating. However, our answer to the difficult question differs from both of them: filtering. This new method of “filtering” must represent the concept of “+81 Gallery +Lab”: an experimental capsule-concept-gallery, the project in various sites all over the world under the same concept. Just as a capsule can be effective against various diseases by changing the medicine in it, “+81 Gallery +Lab” is flexible. That is, it does not adapt nor separate itself. Instead, it filters and controls the existing information of the site and then reflects its existing situation so that the galleries can have stronger meanings than adapting and separating.

In the case of the location “Chiyoda”， “+81 Gallery +Lab” intended to strongly represent the boundaries between the “capsule” and the “medicine” by changing the glosses of floor finishing so that people can recognise that they are in a “capsule”. Outside the “capsule”, we minimised the changes and just painted the entrance except its frames so that the “capsule” stands out.

Moreover, we deliberately kept the frames of the wall unpainted, which was a clear boundary between the classroom and the corridor, so that it is now an ambiguous one. The unpainted frames cut off the preserved wall in the classroom and the outdoor green together. As a result, people may feel them blended from the corridor.

“+81 Gallery +Lab” will show its identity all over the world. We expect that it will expand while young artists play active roles.

*“3331 Arts Chiyoda” is a conversion project of Rensei Secondary School, which has been closed. Tokyo has more and more closed schools primarily because of fewer children.