Studio Velocity has recently topped Sanno’s office in Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, with a large, curved, inhabitable roof.

Sanno Office by Studio Velocity is a secure and open interior, suitable for dense residential areas with rooftop space that ensures moderate privacy. Creating curved surface demands material of polygonal structure while bending laminated wood and steel. Both of those methods are demanding in the meaning of time and effort while increasing the thickness of the slab. Therefore we turned to the idea of creating a curved surface from flat material with a very thin and flat cross-section while generating a curved surface by gravity and tension itself.

“Generally, we have three methods to create a curved surface,” explains the design team. “The first one is to use reinforced concrete. Or we could place multi-angled veneer together to make a curved finishing. Curved laminated wood, steel keel can also be used to build up the structure for a curved surface. However, it is very expensive to create curved surface by reinforced concrete or keels, and the other way is too troublesome, leaving with an unwilling thickened slab.”