Object of the work This building is located in an old town of Niigata. The town is 200 km to the north of Tokyo and in heavy snow region. This project is reconstruction of an old Machiya to new office building. Machiya is a kind of Japanese traditional townhouse along the street. Because the shape of site is very narrow in side facing with street and very long in depth from street, light and fresh air doesn’t reach to the back of Machiya. To improve ‘Machiya environmental problem’, we put two-storey atrium with skylight along the long axis of the site. It makes wind run through the tube-like building, and makes sunshine enter in and exhaust air go out through the skylight. The glass partitions in wooden frame divide space into atrium and office room. It has 3D curved surface. The shape of interior space symbolizes client’s corporate identity that is very creative and dynamic.
Structure In heavy snow region, traditional ‘Machiya’ has high-pitched roof to drop snow down. But there is danger that falling snow bound injure people around the roof. So we chose flat roof to load snow covering and steel structure to support it. The shape of the building is square, and its size is 5.5m in frontage on street and 20m in longer axis from street to back. Because there is atrium as a gap between the 2nd floor slab and wall to support it, the slab is hanged from roof structure. Braces in front and rear façade and EV shaft resist earthquake load from direction of shorter axis.
Materials The main tourism resource of Murakami town is traditional streetscape that founded in 18th century. Buildings in town are surrounded by black wooden fence. With reference to the fence, we used fireproof wood painted black stain for façade facing with the street. We didn’t make this building conflict with the order of the city, but chose it harmonize with the context. Black wooden façade emphasizes the modernity of white-abstruct interior space that is visible from glass entrance of façade. In interior space, wall and ceiling are finished by white cloth and floor is by white stone. Because white materials diffuse light introduced from skylight. The glass partition brings light and eyes inside. They make work place bright and transparent. The dark brown stained wood for frame of partition, furniture and fixture give rhythm and accents in the white space. The wood is from mountain forest of surrounding area. Proactive utilization of local wood will be a solution for improvement from depredation of local forest mountain.
