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Architects: nendo
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:Takumi Ota
Text description provided by the architects. A communication lounge designed for the home builder Sekisui House Ltd. With the change in needs of potential homebuyers caused by the increasing amount of information available online, the conventional housing service with showhouse or room mockup has been replaced by a more long-term, intangible one such as consultation on lifestyle, maintenance, and adaptation to changing family structures.
Such trends have minimized the service style with material samples and models, in favor of more diverse communication spaces such as a cafe, gallery, and lounge. Offering casual housing consultation over a cup of coffee, the lounge regularly hosts a variety of seminars, workshops, art exhibitions, and other contents that lead to a fulfilling lifestyle. The lounge is also equipped with an open design studio function to help visitors feel more comfortable with the architects.
In order to make the space variable enough to accommodate a variety of contents and open enough to dispel the sense of uneasiness that comes from closed spaces, glass doors were used as part of the design. They bring a sense of openness by letting in natural light and greenery from the outside, while maintaining the functional role as a partition between inside and outside. Two hundred frames are arranged in a spiral shape with plants in between, to gently divide the large space with a sense of ambiguity to one’s whereabouts.
Rails are built in the glass doors to allow for flexible attachment of shelves, hangers, hooks, and monitors. Floor materials and ceiling louvers of two subtly different colors, applied in the same alternating directions, highlight the visual effect. The space is a good example of freedom and diversity created by the gradual partition with glass doors, which neither restricts the use of space nor human activities.
