Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | K/O DESIGN STUDIO

Looking back to architectural principles

First of all I wanted to avoid to be included into the category of architecture called as a fragmentation or poetry dominant in recent Japanese cool design trend.  Main stream of Japanese contemporary architecture might be considered as sophisticated transparency or minimalistic modernism, and all to be seen as highly refined but very fragile. The client of this musical college wanted to have a long lasting architecture full of stimulating dynamic messages.

Therefore I tried to look back to the basic principles of architecture, which are form, space and material or color.

Free 3D form Silver mountain and rectangular Red cliff are designed depending on functional and geographical need to be devoted for rehearsal hall ＆ office or located at the traffic pivotal point of the campus, and strongly intended to show the powerful contrast of free form & rigid  box or  contrast of silver and red.

Silver mountain dedicated for 3 storied rehearsal studios mainly used for music practice of students but temporarily for chamber music concert of professional musicians. So it has to have good acoustic hall, attractive lobby & foyer and several ancillary rooms in one envelope.

I have tried to make many different configurations and finally reached to one free 3D form cut out to bring 3 stacked rectangular boxes of studio,  connecting  curved foyer and main lobby space.

That 3D form was made of a tiny styro-foam piece by hand and modeled by form-Z application on the computer. Finally it was precisely analyzed by Rhinoceros as for the connection of free form concrete shell and vertical walls.

3D form was reinforced concrete shell made of Truss Wall System combined with steel rod truss and molding mesh form, and mortared over the roofing and insulation depending on 3D laser measurement on the site to maintain the precise contour lines.

Difficulties are simulation studies of paneling layout to archive maximum use of regular size stainless plate by allowing minimum 5mm tolerance at their rap joints.  Joint lines should be horizontally strait and vertically parallel slanted. This study was performed by Rhinoceros connected with Grass-Hopper plug in.

90% panels of 8500 pieces are regular size, but 10% are irregular and had to be drawn out one by one by computer

0.3mm thickness Stainless steel panel cut out and folded one by one in accordance with computer analysis, was fixed by hand with a help of marker to indicate location of each panel showed on the shell by 3D measurement.

These curved stainless-steel panels are changing its appearance depending on the weather and light.  It can be seen beautifully under the RGB LED lighting in the night.

Inside of Silver mountain is exactly backside reflection of 3D form having very unusual curved ceiling or wall like a large cave.  Custom-made long curved bench was installed along curved wall. Wall finish is Italian troweled traditional plaster to give very soft appearance with lighting up. Floor finish is raff honed Lava to give solid feeling.

Remarkable feature of studio interior is the waved acoustic concrete wall to radiate the sound. Normally such the acoustic wall was made with perforated veneered wood, but carefully casted concrete is preferred for the straight forward expression of the structure.

Required acoustic performance was achieved by sound absorption for low frequency treatment between beams.

Interesting is to look at collision wave patterns of free form shell and waved concrete wall.  This was so correctly estimated before construction by the Rhinoceros study that molding form was precisely manufactured to make beautiful wave pattern.

Glass cloud hanging on the Valley between Silver mountain and Red cliff is a kind of gesture not only indication major axis of the campus but connection of two wings.  Computer generated dot patterns ceramic-printed to show the glass as a cloud, can be looked up from entrance lobby through a tall glass wall.

This white dot patterns as a cloud and a red wall are creating very cheerful atmosphere around the Valley even in night.

Red cliff wall was finished with mosaic tiles of 3 different red colors to show as a kind of random patch works.

Great feature of elevation design is pop upped strong horizontal window frames made of thick steel plate.  Ventilation grills was hidden inside of the canopy of frame, and nothing of obstacles such as vent caps can be seen from outside.  

Red cliff dedicated for the administration office for student and faculty lounge. Large multiple LCD screens to foster image of the music college are installed at the entrance.  Large octopus table having I-pads on the top was put on at entrance hall to be checked the urgent information by the student.

Most of teachers of this college are professional musicians or artists.  So the interior of the lounge was designed to be casual and cheerful to stimulate them and also matched with total mood of architectural design