Kengo Kuma and Associates: The Latest Architecture and News

Kengo Kuma and Associates, together with Bekim Ramku and OUD+ Architects, has recently been awarded first prize in the competition to redesign the Gërmia building into a concert hall and will lead the conversion of Prishtina’s architectural icon into a cultural landmark for Kosovo. The proposal preserves the existing structures and articulates the program within and around the modernist buildings. The design envisions a canopy weaving together the different volumes and creating a new layer of public space.

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Japan plans on transforming the area around Shinagawa station into a global hub, further connecting Tokyo to the international scene of business and innovation. The Connecticut-based architecture firm Pickard Chilton recently completed the masterplan and concept design for the area's redevelopment into the Global Gateway Shinagawa, an innovative urban environment.

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Construction has begun on “Welcome, feeling at work”, a biophilic office of the future in Milan, Italy. Designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates and commissioned by Europa Risorse, this venture seeks to create a workspace centered on employee health and wellbeing, integrated within its local environment. Imagined to be one of the most sustainable office development to date, the project is scheduled for 2024.

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Scheduled to open in the summer of 2021, the H.C. Andersen’s House is a new museum, designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates in Odense, Denmark. Reinterpreting the story of the Danish author’s life and work, the project “will provide a unique artistic experience, which combines landscape, architecture and modern exhibition design”.

Kengo Kuma & Associates has designed a series of luxury villas for a new tourism development in Saudi Arabia. The project was commissioned by The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC) as part of The Red Sea Project. Featuring seven typologies, the design will include villas built on land and overwater. The project aims to set new standards in sustainable development as a global tourism destination.

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Kengo Kuma & Associates and Mad Arkitekter won the competition for the new Ibsen Library in Skien, Norway. Working with BuroHappold Engineering, the team created the design to celebrate the renowned playwright Henrik Ibsen. As a new cultural center for the city, the project creates multiple access points across multiple floors to form a welcoming environment. The library aims to make Ibsen’s drama and literature accessible to everyone.

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Taller de Arquitectura Carmelina&Aurelio, by Tuxtla Gutiérrez in Mexico, has launched a coloring book with illustrations of famous architectural works. Due to the success of the first edition, the studio has just published the second volume of the series, with illustrations of works by Zaha Hadid, Kengo Kuma, Rozana Montiel, BIG, and Eileen Gray. The digital book in PDF format is available for free on the studio website.

As architecture is increasingly reliant on renderings to convey its message and depict the unbuilt, many practices turn to seasoned 3D artists to help them portray their designs in the most favourable light; thus they externalize visualizations to a handful of firms. 

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The Kaira Looro Architecture Competition to support humanitarian projects has released its full list of winning projects for an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) in Sub-Saharan Africa. The contest, already in its 4^th edition, aims to raise awareness among the international community about emergencies in developing countries, and support humanitarian projects in Africa.

Kengo Kuma Associates and K2LD Architects have won the competition to design the new Singapore Founders Memorial. Selected from 193 submissions, the project is made to honor Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, as well as those leaders that played significant roles in the city-state’s path to independence. The jury unanimously selected the winning design for its response to the brief and site, emphasizing Singapore as a “City in a Garden” while allowing for future growth.

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Set to officially open by Spring of 2020, Ace Hotel Kyoto, designed by Kengo Kuma, is a 213- room hotel in Japan. With a program that stretches over a newly built part and an existing historical fragment, that once hosted the Kyoto Central Telephone Company created by Tetsuro Yoshida, the structure is envisioned as a "Cultural Catalyst".

Global smart phone brand OPPO teamed up with Japanese architect Kengo Kuma to create a large outdoor installation at 2019 London Design Festival. Called ‘Bamboo (竹) Ring: Weaving into Lightness’, the project is installed in the John Madejski Garden at the V&A Museum for the duration of the festival. Inspired by the Garden and curated by Clare Farrow, the doughnut-shaped structure has been created by weaving rings of bamboo and carbon fiber together.

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Designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA), and led by partner Yuki Ikeguchi, the Odunpazari Modern Museum (OMM) just opened in Eskisehir, Turkey. The project aims to promote Turkish art and make a cultural contribution to the city of Eskisehir.

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Kengo Kuma (born 8th August, 1956) is one of the most significant Japanese figures in contemporary architecture. His reinterpretation of traditional Japanese architectural elements for the 21st century has involved serious innovation in uses of natural materials, new ways of thinking about light and lightness and architecture that enhances rather than dominates. His buildings don't attempt to fade into the surroundings through simple gestures, as some current Japanese work does, but instead his architecture attempts to manipulate traditional elements into statement-making architecture that still draws links with the area in which it's built. These high-tech remixes of traditional elements and influences have proved popular across Japan and beyond, and his recent works have begun expanding out of Japan to China and the West.

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