MANJUU
Temporary Habitation

Designed by: Audun Hellemo

The area around the site, close to Tokyo Station, is currently being under heavy development. Huge skyscrapers are popping up everywhere, leaving no respect to the city patterns that once (and in some areas still) gave the city its charachter - most notably in the Edo Period. Now small lots are combined into bigger - left are semi-green dead parks no one use and a dramatic loss of experiences while walking in the city. The development makes central Tokyo less Tokyo and more any other big city. The extremely central location cannot justify 2 storeys as today, but the program for temporary housing suggests keeping the old scale, and extruding it in three dimensions. The complex uses the exisiting highrise buildings as a shield against traffic and noise, and fills the core with a poreus structure that gives experiences more similar to those walking on the ground in the low rise district. View corridors, both horizontally, vertically and diagonally through the complex ensures different glimpses of activity and surroundings - an unpredictibility not evident in the high rise districts today. Program include bedrooms, facilities such as auditorium, office space and meetingrooms. Mixed program keeps the area busy at all times, and can be used by people coming to Tokyo in business with the Shinkansen or as an annex to old, poor buildings for people working in the area

Teacher's comment:
Chiba-sensei: "This is maybe a bit too much. Ambitious."