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DAS HOUSE
Because this residence is packed tightly between neighboring houses, windows
have been give special consideration--large ones (bottom) are positioned
to take advantage of long views down narrow alleys.
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Courtesy Atelier Bow-Wow
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Although Paris, London, and New York had long-established urban cultures
with central concentrations of multistory buildings, Tokyo's retooling former
farmers preferred to stay far from the center, close to the land. The vast
majority of properties in the city, then and now, are two-story single-family
dwellings. So the city was, in effect, feudal and suburban before it was
industrial and urban. Even with frequent necessity to rebuild--after the
1923 earthquake and devastating attacks during the last two years of World
War II--the renewal didn't fundamentally change the scale and type of buildings
constructed.
But history alone does not fully explain the predominance of Da-me architecture.
Moriko Kira, an architect working in Holland and Japan, believes the Japanese
obsession with maximizing the utility of small spaces blinds them to the
broader picture. "There is a saying in Japan: 'Dealing only with the
corner of the lunch box (bento box)--changing a little bit'," Kira
says. In other words, only minor alterations are permitted to the rigid
box and format of the typical Japanese lunch. "So instead of prawns,"
she adds, "you have egg cake or something. But nothing really important
changes."
This saying is particularly apt in a culture that demands constant change
and improvement on small scales, such as in fashion or consumer electronics,
while accepting dubious design in the urban context. In contrast to Kira's
experiences in the Netherlands--where government sponsored "beauty
committees," panels of architectural experts, oversee all proposed
development--there is no corresponding system in Japan. The Japanese, it
seems--at least in Tokyo--have a highly defined sense of beauty but
no sense of ugly.
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MINI HOUSE
Atelier Bow-Wow's 900-square-foot residence takes its cue from the economy
of Tokyo's vernacular structures; there's just enough space underneath to
park a Mini Cooper.
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Courtesy Atelier Bow-Wow
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Japan's building culture--like that in the United States--is developer driven.
The enormously powerful construction industry plays an almost unhindered
role in the Japanese desire to build, destroy, and rebuild. Although there's
a high level of quality and efficiency in the construction trades,
Tsukamoto says the industry suffers from a lack of enlightened clients:
"This situation is bad for architects because clients tend to think
of buildings the way they would products from Sony."
The tendency to equate housing with cars or consumer products is reinforced
by the Japanese banking system, which typically lends over a 20-year period
but assumes a house will retain no value at the end of the term. "In
neighborhoods where there are plans to build high-rises, you'll see signs
by residents who are banding together to try and stop it," Oshima says.
"Partially this is because the high-rises will change their own property
values. Once those new projects are finished, their own houses will
not be new. In Tokyo real estate values are often determined by how new--how
attractive--it is for the moment." The average wood-frame residential
building stands for about 25 years, which also contributes to a cultural
acceptance of short-life-span construction methods and a preference for
new housing.
The Ise Shrine--perhaps the most important Shinto temple in Japan--provides
a paradigmatic example of the country's cultural acceptance of frequent
building cycles. "What's interesting about the shrine is that it's
built and rebuilt every twenty years," Oshima says. "There are
two sites side by side--and as one shrine is being torn down an exact replica
is built on the site next to it. It is easy to use that as a metaphor for
the whole cycle of growth and decay."
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PET ARCHITECTURE
Standing between an elevated highway and a railway transformer
substation, the two-story Y Residence has no rear windows and those on
the first floor in front are covered for privacy. You enter through the
one-story attachment, which also contains the bathroom.
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Residence 3 is exactly as deep as the width of the car parked beside
it--5.9 feet. The door (not visible) opens directly onto the street.
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The tiny S Subordinate Cottage (9 feet wide
by 12 feet deep by 7.5 feet high) sits in the corner of a parking lot in
a residential area with a mix of building heights.
Courtesy Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tsukamoto Architectural
Laboratory, and Atelier Bow-Wow.
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While developers like Mori promise an efficient, well-designed future--like
that envisioned by American developers in the 1950s--Tsukamoto and Kaijima
suggest instead a reappreciation of the small building stock of the city.
To encourage interest in these buildings, Atelier Bow-Wow last year published
Pet Architecture Guide Book. The firm's studio is itself a type
of Pet architecture. The two-story space, wedged in between two larger buildings
in the dense Shibuya district, is only six feet wide. The book documents
41 examples of tiny buildings, which range from 3-foot-wide real estate
offices to a 9-by-12-foot shrine that is 100 feet high. Pet architecture
is an extreme manifestation of the Japanese fascination with smallness and
"void phobia," the resolute unwillingness to let any space go
unused. "Pet architecture is not accepted as important buildings,"
Tsukamoto says. "They can be easily built, they tend to be free of
formal, architectural rules, but they're full of joy."
One of Atelier Bow-Wow's most famous designs, Mini House, which won a Tokyo
Architect Society's Gold Prize in 1999, is a celebration of smallness: only
900 square feet on two levels. (Most Bow-Wow houses are approximately this
size.) The name is an oblique reference to the shape of a miniskirt, and
it allows for a space under its "hemline" to park a Mini Cooper
car. Since parking space is as scarce as living space in Tokyo, many houses
are designed to allow a car of a certain size to fit perfectly within
a small alcove or carport. The house is also sited on land that has been
earmarked for a future expressway, so its limited life span is guaranteed.
Because of this, it is built with inexpensive materials such as plywood
walls and cork floors. "The neighborhood and environment around
Mini House is unstable," Tsukamoto explains, "but still it's a
good example of what is happening in Japan."
DAS House (DAS stands for "deep and short" views) is a study in
adjacency. High density and frequent use of two-level single-family homes
make privacy a difficult issue for architects. Bow-Wow has made a virtue
of necessity by manipulating views so that the neighbors' gardens can be
enjoyed by the owner of DAS House. All houses in Tokyo are required to have
a one-meter-wide "gap space" around the property. The intent is
to provide a sense of greater personal space, but the areas are rarely used
effectively and thus result in lost living space in an already crowded urban
environment. In DAS House, completed last spring, a clever use of downward-projecting
mirrors diverts shallow window views, which would look directly at neighboring
houses. Instead flower beds, shrubs, and other greenery are reflected
in the redirected spectacle. Other large windows are placed strategically
to allow long sight lines through a narrow passageway to a nearby park (the
"deep" view). Mirrors situated outside point upward to allow privacy
while inviting natural light into the space.
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MADE IN TOKYO
Clockwise from top left: a department store with a rooftop roller coaster, a
store with an expressway on the roof, a shrine-topped tunnel, and an apartment
building that sits above a stable are among the hybrid buildings featured
in this Atelier Bow-Wow book.
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Courtesy Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tsukamoto Architectural
Laboratory, and Atelier Bow-Wow.
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As Tokyo embarks on yet another cycle of demolition and construction--its
perpetual story--two conflicting models are emerging. Atelier Bow-Wow
has chosen to embrace the more indigenous "made in Tokyo" solution.
Rather than raze whole sections of the city to install generic skyscraper
districts, they suggest a greater understanding of the existing paradigm
of authentic local development.
If industrial design is seen by many as the equal to architecture, Bow-Wow
believes that this is where Japanese might look for answers to the questions
facing modern Tokyo. "Like the absolute beauty," they wrote in
their first book, "seen in the overwhelming functionalism of products
made in Japan, such as the Sony Walkman and Cup Noodles, the format of urban
dwellings observed in Made in Tokyo can guide us toward new ways
of living in the future urban environment."
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