Japan's famous Shinkansen high-speed railway network was opened in 1964 between the major metropolitan areas of Tokyo and Osaka. The Shinkansen has now reached the southern island called Kyushu. Four new stations were built for this segment. One of them is the Shin-Minamata Station in the city of Minamata.
Not a box / Closed but Open When you’ll enter an architecture, the first thing for you to do will to open the door. But the station has no door. It is already opened. And when you reach the platform, you’ll see coming and going trains. There is no door for the train, too. It is fully opened. This point, ‘openness’ is a unique and interesting characteristics of station architecture. Think about your house. There are doors in your house. Some time it is open, but the other time it is closed. This situation is the same in any usual architecture; school, museum, shop,office….
Nevertheless, station is not a completely open space. Platforms need to provide protection from rain, wind, and sunshine, and to prevent noise from escaping outside as the trains pass through. Railway stations seem to be open, but are actually closed. They seem to be closed, but are actually open.
They are special spaces, unlike the closed package of normal architecture. This work attempts to clarify the special character of railway station space.
Not to stop / Gliding Speed The roof and walls of this architecture consist of a collection of rectangular unit pieces which continue into each other without distinction. The design process began by imagining that a number of the unit pieces were gliding past and then frozen at a particular moment. The shape and state of the structure at this moment were examined to determine how much rain could be kept out, how much wind would blow through, how much shade would be provided, and how much noise from passing trains could be kept from escaping. After numerous repetitions, a state which met the requirements was chosen and this became the design. The various pieces running parallel to each other have different surface angles. Different angles lead to different reflections of light. Pieces with different angles reflect sunlight in different ways, according to the time of day and the season. People will see gleams of different types, depending on the time and the approach they take to the station. This variation, like a sun clock, is another kind of movement.
