Nippori Station is where the Narita line transfers to the Yamanote line. It is the first station where foreign tourists arrive, a number that has increased recently. Many foreigners move to the transfer trains while dragging their suitcases. Yanaka Ginza is located to the west side of the station. It is a popular sightseeing spot where old-fashioned townscapes are surprisingly well-preserved as they escaped war damage and the large scale development in the city center. Nippori station holds 14 train tracks. It consisted of 2 bridge outsite of ticket gate that connects west-east side of the station, and 3 bridges that connects several platform inside the ticket gates. The bridge that connects the east and west side of the city located in the north is a famous spot called the “Train Museum”, crowded with people who come to watch many kinds of trains pass on the track. In the future, where the ticket gate will be touchless and gateless, there will be nothing to separate these two bridges from each other. Exploring the use of local potential for the tourism in future, what would bridge of Nippori station will look like? The two types of bridges are connected so that people can come and go in between and a luggage service is set up on the Keisei line side. This will create an opportunity for the foreign tourists to use their spare time enjoyably while waiting for flights at Narita airport, or for the of hotel check-in, by being able to walk in Yanaka Ginza. A middle floor between the platform and the bridge is installed to develop a train museum. For the local people this intervention will become the base of spreading the culture of Yanaka Ginza to foreign countries. In the flow of local people and foreign visitors passing by each other, the fusion space of two kinds of bridges will be the meeting point where cultures form distant foreign countries meet each other. This is symbolized by the roof structure that alternately straddles the two bridges.
LIFE PERFORMANCE
Living in spacial voids carved through unique movements
Two performers in flux – one spinning, one climbing. Their living environment is defined by a balance of solid and void. An originally solid block, spatially subtracted by the motions of the spinner, acting almost like a mill, constitute an unconventional place for living. Spaces shaped by the motion of spinning, circular in their nature, in one continuous fluent place. The remaining volume being reminiscent of rauks, a column-like stone pylon eroded by the sea. Not only are the structures a true climber’s dream to cling onto, but the confined void into which one pushes and compresses to sustain oneself further caters to the behaviour.
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.
Biking Shibuya River
Our intention for this project was to create a single inspirational intervention, demonstrating both the functional and adventurous aspects of bicycling to people sho usually travel Tokyo by metro, bus or car. This resulted in the concept of adding a bicycle path on top of the Shibuya River, which runs from Shibuya station to Tokyo Bay. With this intervention, we’re able to use a void in the city to create an experience an experience that is unique to bicyclists.
Stay In The Sky Stay in The Sky
The area in front of Jiyugaoka station North exit is exposed to intensive flows of people as well as various things and events in the town. From early morning to midnight, scenes change constantly through local people’s ac- tivities, the tides of 160,000 commuters and visitors a day, car and train fluxes, and the operations of shops and offices, all of which punctuate the apparently chaotic scenes into unique rhythms of the town like slow breath- ing.
Now almost buried among recent high-rise buildings, five two-storey shops facing the sta- tion square still remain as the face of the town, and one would notice the shops share an un- even yet similar-height roofline. Once noticed, the contrast between new high-rises and the surviving low-rises looks like a reminder of old Jiyugaoka back in the rapidly fading past.
Our accommodation project “YOUR PRIVATE SKY” redefines the now-hidden roofline into an open space for the shop customers and lo- cal and visiting rooftop lovers, while providing special access to sky and townscape only with the guests.