Project: Shinonome Canal Court Block 1
RIKEN YAMAMOTO interviewed by Tomoko Sakamoto from Actar
The feature of this project is 'openness' of the housing, which is usually designed closed for the residents' privacy. Is this because you think the housing today has to be changed, or you think that contemporary society already need more opened housing but there are not such housing buildings to respond to their need?
The style of housing today - one family in one house - is established after Japan lost the war in 1945, when we had to produce large quantity of housings for reconstruction. And this style was invented in Europe after the First World War, and imported to Japan. Japan Public Housing Corporation (Nihon Jutaku Kodan) was the supply source of this 'one family in one house' style housing in 1955.
The features were like these:
-A house is occupied by one family
-The house is extremely closed (to respect privacy)
-Neighbors' housings (families) should not interfere each other
-A family is a highly self-efficient and self-directive unit (housewife does every domestic service)
-A family is a unit of reproduction (to have children)
So, many housings have been constructed following to these features, and the basic idea of this style has not changed at all since then. Today, private developers are also producing the housing with this style, as a packaged product. But condition of the families today has been completely changed up until today.
For example, the average family number in Tokyo is now only 2 due to aging and the low birthrate. And the number of elder people who live alone is increasing.
Use of the housing has also changed, it is not unusual to find people who buy or rent a house and use as an office.
These means that the system of 'one family in one house' is already collapsed. This project was designed with strong consciousness of this change. That is why we tried to make a housing with a new system.
We understood that the f-ROOM is a proposal to use a house in multi purpose way. Usually, a word SOHO (small office home office) reminds us a kind of lifestyle which is possible because we are connected to the society / company by network. But here, a SOHO space is designed physically opened to stimulate communication between the neighbors. What do you expect, or hope about 'physical' relationship between the neighbors in this age of networking society (in Tokyo)?
When the network society becomes denser, the importance of physical contact increases, especially for elder people. And if you use the housing as a working place, too, it is necessary to meet the people there. I think housing will be more opened to outside in the future. The problem is the outside of the housing. In this project of Shinonome, the most important theme was the design of the exterior of the housing, as well as housing planning.
Several years have past since the completion of this project. Do you find some fact that people use this building as you planned, or contrary, in different way as you planned?
Administrative structure of Urban Renaissance Agency (ex. Japan Public Housing Corporation) is not enough. They are still managing all according to the 'one family in one house' system. Many residents use here as SOHO, but there is unsolved inconsistent system like you have to pay consumption tax for using it as an office. However, communication between the neighbors is much more frequent than existent housings.
Did you use any particular material or construction method to realize this building in the cost limit of social housing?
Yes, we used pre-cast concrete construction system to have enough strength in lower cost. And we had used ready-made parts as much as possible to control the cost, too.