Logistics

While highly efficient logistic systems have been established in recent years, the last mile is still carried by human hands. Now that the volume of packages is increasing due to the impact of COVID-19, it is necessary to rethink the working place of essential workers in logistics.
Our proposal is a transportation system for small packages that utilize the existing train network. By utilizing the existing infrastructure and involving local users in the first and last mile, the burden on Essential Workers will be distributed.
In logistics, where more and more packages are being shipped, utilizing existing stock will become more important than building huge warehouses.
We hope this video will give you an opportunity to look back on the current situation around the essential workers.

Carlos Beires House

The Casa Carlos Bereiras is a most ambivalent building. While partly hidden behind fragile walls on the street sides, the facade tends to dissolve the volume, mostly by the fractured windows, all set at a slight angle.
On the side facing the neighbors, the apparent volume is increased by a wall on top of the building – but with nothing behind it. The circulation within the building is merely a sequence of rooms.
We mainly kept the layout, since we liked it. But we tried to adapt the heavy materials and construction to fit a more Japanese environment.

Pilgrims Hostel

PILGRIMS HOSTEL
The design proposal is on the site next to the shrine – connected on the same level, and with plenty of vegetation. We search about the activities of pilgrims, and offer a timeline of activities: the basic ones (sleeping, bath- ing), and some that connect with the spiritual experience (dining, workshops, tea ceremony, meditation/worship). The process started with dispersing the activities on the site to create the design, and connect them in two areas public and private, linked with the semi-public outdoor space.
The sequences were part of the pilgrimage narrative – spiritual journey within the site. From arriving, along the long ramp corridor, to come to the point which is opposite of the public entrance to the temple. And climbing few steps, to reach a garden semi-private, disconnected from the street with the terrace from the hostel. The garden offers three paths – meditation room under ground, with a sky opening that views the shrine. Continuing to the terrace and the reception of the hostel, or continuing to the shrine. After the reception, few steps are climbed to provide accommo- dating space on the same level as the shrine.

Shimbashi

The proposal for architectural intervention in spaces underneath both the historical and the modern railway viaducts broadens and deepens pre-existing communities and ecologies, and reuses the available structures. It connects districts in eastern and western sides of the railway tracks by creating porous environment of passages in the ground floor level. These are intertwined with spaces for services such as shops, restaurants or bars, as well as rentable areas for a variety of public functions, or fully public spaces.