NISHIJI COLLECTION EXHIBITION (23 Feb - 12 Mar 2022) PHOTO : Munemasa Takahashi
The project site locates along Chiba-Kaido Avenue in the historical part of Nishifunabashi, Chiba, near the Sengen Shrine on the hill with lush pine forests. The client, an art collector operating a real estate business, planned to build a new building on his parents’ property to accommodate his family’s residence and his company’s galleries & offices. Besides his parents’ house on the northern end of the property, most areas of the linear site closer to the road were relatively unplanned, with an old warehouse building and car parks mixed in the lush vegetation. Thus, our first approach was to organize the entire site so that the two families’ lives and the workspaces coexist comfortably, arranging site circulation and developing a sloped garden moderating the level differences between the two buildings. The new building accommodates garages in the middle of GF and the residence on the quiet northern side facing the garden. The galleries & offices are vertically consolidated on the southern side towards the national road to be the main face of the building. Interpreting the client’s visions to this place, such as cultural commitment to the neighborhoods, attraction to external visitors, and utilization of suburban potentials, we aimed to incorporate publicness and versatility into the new building together with attractive design, like ‘museum with a house’ rather than ‘house with galleries.’
Following the memories of the old warehouse building that had existed from his grandparents’ generation on the site, the custom-designed kawara, traditional roofing tiles, are used for façade cladding. Kuroibushi kawara, a blackened type resistant to salt damages, forms a solid appearance to protect the collections and the residents’ living. The custom kawara tile is designed to achieve two façade types with one shape, shingles and louvers, by changing its orientation and fixture. The kawara louvers partially open the solid shingle façade to incorporate filtered daylights and views with privacy control from the road. On top of the kawara volume, the north-facing sawtooth roofs towards the pine forests of the shrine take abundant northern daylights desirable to art spaces into the building. The staggered building volume by timber construction is elevated above the washed concrete mass resembling a castle base. The twist of the two structural grids, timber structure oriented to the true north over the concrete structure following the site geometry, creates various interstitial spaces such as canopies and terraces distributed throughout the building and characterizes the spatial experiences.
While the southern side of the building containing three floors of the galleries/offices stands out in the urban fabric, the building volume steps down towards the north following the building code and transitions to the residential scale towards the garden. The roof pitch of the seven sawtooth roof units varies according to each height and internal usages to incorporate appropriate daylights. Their structural framing around the northern windows forms Vierendeel trusses to allow unusually long-span spaces as timber construction. The southern three steep roofs function as skylights filling full of daylights into the 3F Gallery. The northern three gentle roofs play the role of residential windows providing views towards the sky and the garden besides stable brightness like an artist’s atelier. The central outdoor roof covers the multi-purpose terrace on 2F for various usages such as an exhibition/event space for the galleries or a kids’ playground, which functions as a shortcut path to the workspaces from the living room as well as a threshold to keep a comfortable distance between public and private.
As the structural system and the daylight condition transition, the spatial characters vertically transition from the rough and closed spaces like a cave on GF to the bright spaces open to the sky under the roof. Considering the wide range of the client’s collection from contemporary art to antique, and possible operations in the future, various interstitial spaces are planned for flexible usages and potential exhibition spaces in addition to the main galleries. Extending the journeys to the spacious outdoor terraces and the external landscape, visitors will enjoy strolling around and experiencing dynamic spatial sequences with various materiality and daylights.
This new cluster with the kawara façade and the sawtooth roofs begins a new era in this historical site as a generous field to comfortably mix artworks, residents, and visitors. To our delights, beyond the original idea of building just for the private collection, the encouraged client ended up launching a new art business utilizing this building to bring more visitors and public exposure. We hope this architecture to be the reliable base for art and culture appealing to the world, besides supporting joyful and abundant daily life like living in a museum.
高台の山野浅間神社の松林を背に、昔ながらの石塀が残る西船橋の千葉街道沿い。不動産業を営みながらアートコレクターでもある施主による、代々続く実家の敷地内に自宅および事務所兼ギャラリーを建てる計画です。北側最奥の高台に母屋(実家)が構えて道路側は古い蔵と駐車場のある雑多な庭だったため、まずは事業と二世帯それぞれの暮らしが共存できるよう、母屋との高低差をつなぐスロープ状の庭や共用動線などの敷地環境を整えました。新しい建物の一階中央には駐車場がおさまり、庭に開けた静かな北側には住宅が配され、事業スペースをまとめた道路側は街と繋がる建物の顔となります。地元地域への文化的貢献をしたい、わざわざ遠くから人が訪れる存在にしたい、郊外の環境を活かした建物にしたいという施主の志を受け、ギャラリー付き住宅というよりは住宅付き美術館のような、さまざまな使い方に対応できる公共性や汎用性を兼ね備えた魅力的な建築を目指しました。
敷地に元あった瓦屋根の蔵の記憶を継承し、塩害に強い黒いぶし瓦の外装で所蔵品や暮らしを守るに相応しい堅牢な佇まいとする一方で、神社の松林も茂る真北方向へと開く鋸屋根を並べることで、アート空間に相応しい北側自然光を最大限有効に取り込みました。外装の特注瓦は、設置する向きを変えることで同じ形状で閉じた外装面と開口部のルーバーの両方を構成できる意匠になっており、南面では直射日光を遮って国道からのプライバシーを守りながらもルーバーを通した木漏れ日のような光を取り入れます。鋸屋根を冠して雁行形に連なる2・3階の木造躯体は、敷地に沿った石垣のような1階洗い出しコンクリート躯体に被さるように重なり、積層する構造グリッドのねじれに階高の段階的な変化が掛け合わされて、庇やテラスなどの様々な立体的な中間領域が建物全体に散りばめられます。
三層のギャラリー・事務所を内包して国道に対して堂々とした存在感を示す建物ボリュームは、法規も考慮して北側に向かって高さを落としながら、徐々に庭へと馴染む住宅スケールへと変遷していきます。それぞれ高さと勾配が異なる7つの鋸屋根は、開口部の柱梁によるフィーレンディールトラスが大スパンを可能にし、金属屋根を反射板として内部空間の用途に応じた自然光を取り込みます。急勾配の南側3つはトップライトとして3階ギャラリーを柔らかな間接光で満たし、緩勾配の北側3つは窓として住空間にアーティストのアトリエのような安定した光環境を与えて空や庭への眺望を開きます。中央の外部屋根が覆う風の抜ける2階多目的テラスは、ギャラリーの展示・イベントスペースや子供の遊び場などの様々な使い方を許容し、住宅リビングと事務所を結ぶ動線も兼ねながら公私のほどよい距離を保っています。
構造形式や採光の変遷に伴って、洞窟のような下階から光溢れる上階へと内部空間の質が移り変わり、それが各ギャラリー空間をも特色付けます。現代アートから骨董品まで多岐にわたる施主のコレクションや将来的なフレキシブルな使い方を考慮して、三種のギャラリー・オフィス空間に加えて踊り場や廊下にも展示を想定し、訪問者の動線に沿って様々な場所や余白が用意されました。そこに立体的な半屋外空間や外構ランドスケープが絡みあい、光や素材の切り替わりと相まって、回遊性溢れるダイナミックな空間シークエンスが展開していきます。
この瓦の鎧と鋸屋根が織りなす小さな街並みは、展示品・所蔵品と居住者・訪問者を心地よく共存させる寛容な場として、この土地に新たな時代を刻んでいきます。嬉しいことに、あくまでプライベートコレクション用ギャラリーとして始まった当初の想定を越えて、より広くへの公開も意図してここを拠点にした新たなアートビジネスが始まるに至りました。小さな美術館に暮らすような楽しく豊かな日々を支えると共に、アート・文化の拠点として世界へも発信していけるような存在になることを期待しています。
004 NISHIJI PROJECT
PROJECT : Gallery & Office, Client's Residence
STATUS : Completed (2021)
LOCATION : 1-1-16-2, Nishifuna, Funabashi City, Chiba, Japan
SITE : 585 sqm
BUILDING : Reinforced Concrete Structure (1F), Timber-framing Structure (2&3F)
AREA : 557 sqm
CLIENT : Nishiji Inc.
CONTRACTOR : Aoki koumuten Co.,Ltd.
STRUCTURE : yasuhirokaneda STRUCTURE
MEP : MOCHIDA Building Engineering + EOS plus
ENVIRONMENT : OM Solar EDL + Studio Nora
LIGHTING : Tokosha / Takumi Fujiwara
LANDSCAPE : N-tree / Takeshi Nagasaki
CURTAIN : Akane Moriyama
PHOTOGRAPHY : Vincent Hecht
004 西治プロジェクト