For the 2021 Milan Design Week, Kengo Kuma Associates designed a bamboo installation that merges form, materiality and music, creating a multisensory experience. Created in collaboration with smart device manufacturer OPPO, Bamboo (竹) Ring :|| Weaving a Symphony of Lightness and Form answers the "Creative Connections" theme by merging architecture and music, as well as craftsmanship and technology.
Kengo Kuma's EDA office building revitalizes an abandoned site in Paris, creating a new urban landmark and signalling the renewal of the Issy-les-Moulineaux neighbourhood. Through its horizontality, the large scale project sitting at the confluence of three traffic rouets mediates the urban discontinuities of the surroundings while reflecting the context's dynamic of movement and flows. Defined as "a dense network of tree-lined terraces and hanging gardens", the design features a wood structure and a double-skin façade whose sunscreen elements create the architectural image.
Kengo Kuma & Associates has designed the Edogawa City Eiko Kadono Children's Literature Museum (tentative name), a new cultural venue where the young can experience the imaginary world envisioned by acclaimed Japanese children book author Eiko Kadono. Located on the banks of the Edogawa river and within the natural setting of Nagisa Park in Tokyo, the project features an array of volumes following the hill's slope and an overhanging roof that expands towards the landscape.
"We all have to change our way of thinking now. I want to change my architecture to be even more kind to nature," says Kengo Kuma in this Louisiana Channel interview, where he shares his thoughts on the pandemic's impact on architecture and the environment. The architect discusses the collective responsibility towards nature and the importance of designing buildings and cities that allow for and encourage outdoor activities.
Talking to the Louisiana Channel, iconic Japanese architect Kengo Kuma discusses the many influences that have shaped his work - and also delves into the impact that the ongoing pandemic has had on the architectural field. In the interview, Kuma describes how influential his early upbringing was to his architectural career. Growing up in a small wooden house in the 1950s - originally built in 1942, would go on to guide his architectural perchance of using wood in his projects. Kuma also mentions Japanese architect Kenzu Tange as a key inspiration and cites Tange's Yoyogi National Gymnasium - constructed for the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo - as a project that would influence him towards an architectural career.
Kengo Kuma and Associates, together with Bekim Ramku and OUD+ Architects, has recently been awarded first prize in the competition to redesign the Gërmia building into a concert hall and will lead the conversion of Prishtina’s architectural icon into a cultural landmark for Kosovo. The proposal preserves the existing structures and articulates the program within and around the modernist buildings. The design envisions a canopy weaving together the different volumes and creating a new layer of public space.
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Japan plans on transforming the area around Shinagawa station into a global hub, further connecting Tokyo to the international scene of business and innovation. The Connecticut-based architecture firm Pickard Chilton recently completed the masterplan and concept design for the area's redevelopment into the Global Gateway Shinagawa, an innovative urban environment.
Construction has begun on “Welcome, feeling at work”, a biophilic office of the future in Milan, Italy. Designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates and commissioned by Europa Risorse, this venture seeks to create a workspace centered on employee health and wellbeing, integrated within its local environment. Imagined to be one of the most sustainable office development to date, the project is scheduled for 2024.
Scheduled to open in the summer of 2021, the H.C. Andersen’s House is a new museum, designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates in Odense, Denmark. Reinterpreting the story of the Danish author’s life and work, the project “will provide a unique artistic experience, which combines landscape, architecture and modern exhibition design”.
Kengo Kuma & Associates has designed a series of luxury villas for a new tourism development in Saudi Arabia. The project was commissioned by The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC) as part of The Red Sea Project. Featuring seven typologies, the design will include villas built on land and overwater. The project aims to set new standards in sustainable development as a global tourism destination.
Kengo Kuma & Associates and Mad Arkitekter won the competition for the new Ibsen Library in Skien, Norway. Working with BuroHappold Engineering, the team created the design to celebrate the renowned playwright Henrik Ibsen. As a new cultural center for the city, the project creates multiple access points across multiple floors to form a welcoming environment. The library aims to make Ibsen’s drama and literature accessible to everyone.
Taller de Arquitectura Carmelina&Aurelio, by Tuxtla Gutiérrez in Mexico, has launched a coloring book with illustrations of famous architectural works. Due to the success of the first edition, the studio has just published the second volume of the series, with illustrations of works by Zaha Hadid, Kengo Kuma, Rozana Montiel, BIG, and Eileen Gray. The digital book in PDF format is available for free on the studio website.
As architecture is increasingly reliant on renderings to convey its message and depict the unbuilt, many practices turn to seasoned 3D artists to help them portray their designs in the most favourable light; thus they externalize visualizations to a handful of firms.
The Kaira Looro Architecture Competition to support humanitarian projects has released its full list of winning projects for an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) in Sub-Saharan Africa. The contest, already in its 4th edition, aims to raise awareness among the international community about emergencies in developing countries, and support humanitarian projects in Africa.
Kengo Kuma Associates and K2LD Architects have won the competition to design the new Singapore Founders Memorial. Selected from 193 submissions, the project is made to honor Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, as well as those leaders that played significant roles in the city-state’s path to independence. The jury unanimously selected the winning design for its response to the brief and site, emphasizing Singapore as a “City in a Garden” while allowing for future growth.
Set to officially open by Spring of 2020, Ace Hotel Kyoto, designed by Kengo Kuma, is a 213- room hotel in Japan. With a program that stretches over a newly built part and an existing historical fragment, that once hosted the Kyoto Central Telephone Company created by Tetsuro Yoshida, the structure is envisioned as a "Cultural Catalyst".
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