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Architects: Ono Architect Office, Sigma Construction
- Area: 100 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Yoshihiko Takeuchi
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Lead Architects: Akio ONO
Text description provided by the architects. We planned a three-story wooden semi-fireproof pencil building on a long and narrow site of 3.8m x 14m, connecting the 16m road in front of Kumagaya Station and the 4m road in the residential area behind. The client has been running a second-hand clothing store in the area for many years, so the plan is to use the top floor as the second-hand clothing store and the client's office while renting out the first and second floors as tenants.
A composition that incorporates the continuity of two streets - The street facing the residential area is lined with small shops and houses, making it a quiet and attractive street that is a different atmosphere from the main street in front of the station. The adjacent land is currently vacant and is used as a flow line for people walking from the station side. This project also has a plan that allows people to pass through the building, connecting two streets. The fittings facing the residential area have sliding doors that can be fully opened on all three floors so that each floor can be connected openly to the city.
A façade design that is conscious of the perspective of looking up and the setback from the town - The sense of the scale of the three-story building gives a strong impression of the ceiling on the top floor, especially at night, as a landscape along the main street. Therefore, by making the roof a hipped roof, the impression of a simple triangular roof is created during the daytime, while at night the ceiling surface of the roof with a wooden finish appears as a façade. To secure the flow line up to the 3rd floor and maximize the tenant area for the elongated site shape, we installed a staircase on the main street side and planned it as part of the facade design. At the same time, the stairs are on the main street side, creating a certain distance from the road, in contrast to the surrounding environment where many buildings are built as volumes up to the boundary of the road. As a result, the frame design is formed by deep eaves, wing walls, and a triangular roof, which is welcoming to the city and pedestrians.
Around windows diffusing light - Since the site is located two minutes from the station and is in a commercial district along the main street in front of the station, there is a high possibility that a building will be built on the adjacent land in the future. Therefore, the short side of the building is composed only of openings, and the long side, which is in contact with the adjacent land, is used as equipment space. To guide the light from the outside to the inside, we selected a finish and paint that diffuses the light around the openings of the short side and the stairwell.
Cross-section plan that includes a variety of spaces - Cross-sectional plans of tenant buildings tend to be uniform. By lowering the floor by 530mm on the 1st floor and making it semi-basement, and by giving the ceiling height of the roof with a 5-inch slope on the top floor, we have achieved a cross-sectional plan that varies the ceiling height from 2.5m to 3.8m depending on the floor. In this way, although it is a compact building, by giving gestures to the stairs, openings, roofs, and ceilings, based on consideration of the surrounding situation, we aimed to make this building an open place in continuity with the city.
