“Oyane-San” Shikoku Mura Entrance / kousou
Textual content description offered by the architects. On the northern tip of Shikoku Island, surrounded by the Seto Inland Sea, is Mt. Yashima, a peninsula with historic significance for Japan. This scenic locale hosts Shikoku Mura, a number one open-air architectural museum devoted to preserving and showcasing conventional homes from the Shikoku area. Our problem was to revamp its entrance, remodeling it into a brand new focus full with data areas, ticketing, restrooms, and a store—all whereas symbolizing renewal. The positioning was a parking zone elevated above the primary entry highway, loosely connecting a shrine to the east, the museum’s udon restaurant inside a standard home (Waraya) to the south, and an previous Western-style home (Ijinkan) to the west. To the north, main the customer deep into the museum grounds, is Nagarezaka, a stone highway by sculptor Masayuki Nagare.
We realized that our activity was not solely making a constructing however a cohesive, three-dimensional house that may unite beforehand disparate parts. Collaborating with panorama planners from EAU, we endeavored to deliver again the unique sloping topography buried beneath the parking zone. This not solely facilitated pure motion towards the museum but in addition enhanced visible and spatial connections between the udon restaurant and the doorway.
Reorienting the Waraya to face the museum additional solidified this connection, culminating within the placement of a brand new customer heart atop the reshaped landform—a gateway to the museum. The positioning’s standing as a nationwide historic heritage and restrictions on deep foundations formed our architectural idea. Choosing a easy two-story construction, sturdy however mild, the primary flooring was bolstered concrete, serving as a inflexible field. Above it, drawing inspiration from native custom, we launched a gabled roof composed of 47 pairs of glulam beams. By progressively altering the angle of every pair, we had been capable of obtain an natural form harking back to a residing creature. It’s a advanced silhouette however a easy construction. This distinctive roof earned the constructing its moniker, “Oyane-san” or “huge roof.”
The west façade emerged as a pivotal side of the design, appearing as one of many constructing’s main faces. Balancing aesthetic attraction with performance, we offered shade to the semi-outdoor entrance by repurposing 300-year-old columns and beams into skinny facade tiles. The fabric got here from a standard wooden home (Endo Residence) owned by the shopper and broken by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Every bit had a distinct form and dimension, showcasing imperfections and lacking corners, which created gaps permitting mild to leak by means of. This resulted in a stained glass-like display, providing a testomony to the sustainability of reimagined previous supplies. Oyane-san serves a twin objective.
As guests enter Shikoku Mura, it acts as an informative gateway. Conversely, for these exiting, it serves as an area for additional studying and information consolidation. We tried to supply an area that curates the expertise and permits one to study in regards to the tradition of Shikoku by means of conventional structure. In 2022, the constructing gained recognition as a part of the Seto Artwork Triennale, increasing its attain to a broader viewers and amplifying the cultural publicity it presents.
