Comment on “Gap between buildings as new urban façade” by Tomonaga Kosaku

Tomonaga’s blog shows the gap space between buildings in high density city. Those stress the differences between stages in the process of urban development.

Case study

A five-story townhouse in Tokyo, Japan, designed and built by the famous Japanese architect Ryue Nishizawa. It is located in Tokyo’s intensive business district. It is a place where two writers live and work. The base of the building is only four meters wide, so Ryue Nishizawa’s design uses a glass wall completely to avoid further compression of the space. At the same time, completely surrounding the inside wall of the glass buildings get sufficient light.Garden space decorated in every corner of the house, each layer does not lack green. The interior of the building adopts a spiral staircase. The beautiful arc passes through the thick concrete floor and leads directly to the rooftop garden. Overall, the design of this house will be subject to many restrictions, not only the gap of each floor is different, but also may be irregularly shaped, in addition, keeping warm is a big problem.

Gap building can effectively increase the utilisation of urban space. Filling the gap between buildings in the development of the city, and create a better facade. But due to the non-modularization even irregular shapes of the gaps, gap buildings may cost a lot to build. They are difficult to build by machine, which also may increase the budget. Furthermore, when the gaps between buildings are filled, a majority of small path will disappear which may cause traffic problems.

Reference

Frearson, A. (2013) ‘Garden and House by Ryue Nishizawa’, dezeen, January, Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2013/01/23/garden-and-house-by-ryue-nishizawa/