MAKUHARI BAY NEW TOWN
Chiba, Japan, 1992-03/01/1996
PROGRAM: 190 units of housing, retail and public facilities
CLIENT: Mitsui Fudosan Group
SIZE: 27,601
STATUS: completed
The new town of Makuhari is sited on a dredged fill at the rim of Tokyo Bay. Our concept interrelates two distinct types: silent heavyweight buildings and active lightweight structures. The silent buildings shape urban space and passage with apartments entered via inner garden courts. The concrete bearing walls have thick facades and a rhythmic sequence of openings. Slightly inflected according to sunlight they gently bend space and passage. Celebration of natural phenomena is taken up by the lightweight "activist" forms. Individuated "sounds" invade the heavyweight "silence" of the bracketing buildings. Inspired by Basho's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, the semi-public inner gardens and the perspectival arrangement of activist houses form an inner journey.
Chiba, Japan, 1992-03/01/1996
PROGRAM: 190 units of housing, retail and public facilities
CLIENT: Mitsui Fudosan Group
SIZE: 27,601
STATUS: completed
The new town of Makuhari is sited on a dredged fill at the rim of Tokyo Bay. Our concept interrelates two distinct types: silent heavyweight buildings and active lightweight structures. The silent buildings shape urban space and passage with apartments entered via inner garden courts. The concrete bearing walls have thick facades and a rhythmic sequence of openings. Slightly inflected according to sunlight they gently bend space and passage. Celebration of natural phenomena is taken up by the lightweight "activist" forms. Individuated "sounds" invade the heavyweight "silence" of the bracketing buildings. Inspired by Basho's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, the semi-public inner gardens and the perspectival arrangement of activist houses form an inner journey.
'The coordinated efforts of the developer, the architects and the contractor have produced an architectural space of beauty and dignity that seeks to inspire an "inner journey." One occupant is quoted as saying: "I don't want to ever leave this place. It is beautiful at all hours of day.'
-38th BCS Prize-Winning Works, 1997
-38th BCS Prize-Winning Works, 1997
AWARDS
Japanese Building Contractors Society Award, Japan, 1999
NYC AIA Architecture Project Award, USA, 1993
Japanese Building Contractors Society Award, Japan, 1999
NYC AIA Architecture Project Award, USA, 1993
CREDITS
architect
– Steven Holl Architects
Steven Holl (design architect)
Tomoaki Tanaka (project architect)
Mario Gooden, Tom Jenkinson, Janet Cross, Terry Surjan (project team, master plan)
Anderson Lee, Sumito Takashina, Sebastian Schulze, Gundo Sohn, Justin Korhammer, Bradford Kelley, Lisina Fingerhuth, Anna Müller, Jan Kinsbergen, Hideaki Ariizumi (project team, design development/construction)
associate architects
– Kajima Design
Toshio Enomoto, Masahiro Shimazaki, Kazuhiko Funo, Akihito Morino, Yashushi Ninomiya (project team)
– K. Sone & Environmental Design Associates
Konichi Sone (principal)
Tomoko Watanabe (project architect)
Yoshihiro Kanamaru, Hisakazu Ishijima (project team)
engineer
– Kajima Design
block design coordinator
– Konichi Sone
block architect
– Toshio Enomoto
– Kajima Design
landscape architect
– JUKA Garden and Architecture
lighting consultant
– L'Observatoire International
general contractor
– Kajima Design
– Kaisei
– Mitsui Fudosan Group
architect
– Steven Holl Architects
Steven Holl (design architect)
Tomoaki Tanaka (project architect)
Mario Gooden, Tom Jenkinson, Janet Cross, Terry Surjan (project team, master plan)
Anderson Lee, Sumito Takashina, Sebastian Schulze, Gundo Sohn, Justin Korhammer, Bradford Kelley, Lisina Fingerhuth, Anna Müller, Jan Kinsbergen, Hideaki Ariizumi (project team, design development/construction)
associate architects
– Kajima Design
Toshio Enomoto, Masahiro Shimazaki, Kazuhiko Funo, Akihito Morino, Yashushi Ninomiya (project team)
– K. Sone & Environmental Design Associates
Konichi Sone (principal)
Tomoko Watanabe (project architect)
Yoshihiro Kanamaru, Hisakazu Ishijima (project team)
engineer
– Kajima Design
block design coordinator
– Konichi Sone
block architect
– Toshio Enomoto
– Kajima Design
landscape architect
– JUKA Garden and Architecture
lighting consultant
– L'Observatoire International
general contractor
– Kajima Design
– Kaisei
– Mitsui Fudosan Group