Japanese studio Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office has completed a mixed-use building in Tokyo featuring a jumbled composition of concrete rooms that create spaces for small balconies and gardens.
Built for gallery owner Taka Ishii, the multilevel building makes full use of the narrow, deep lot that Hirata had to work with. Functioning as a series of boxes stacked on one another, some left open to create folds and voids, interior and exterior meld into one another.
"The trunk and leaves differ in appearance, but are very similar in their basic structure — their inter-relationship creates a kind of nested or layered organic structure. It is possible to create an architectural logic that creates a similar organically layered and ‘tangled’ structure. The design seeks to develop this new architectural principle, with the intention of creating a complex ecosystem connected to the city."
