Corrugated house
The project is to renovate a structure made of corrugated pipe, a civil engineering material, into an accommodation facility. This building was built by Kenji Kawai, a facility designer, as his own residence in 1965, and has been selected by DOCOMOMO as a Modern Movement building in Japan. In renovating the building, we sought to preserve it not as a static cultural asset, but as a place where visitors can experience the architecture through the experience of staying overnight.
This building was constructed as a house, but was set up as an open one-room space with minimal components: a tunnel-like space made of corrugated pipes, walls to seal the two ends, and a floor between them. There were no separate rooms, and even the bathrooms and toilets had no partition walls.
For the purpose of utilizing the building as accommodation, it was necessary to create separate spaces for guest rooms and sanitary facilities. Therefore, walls were constructed to fill the gaps between the structural elements, ensuring the provision of independent spaces. The new walls were planned to minimize the number of walls to be built and make the most of the existing elements.
The newly constructed walls are finished with a dark brown wooden paneling to match the existing flooring specification. Furniture such as beds, desks, and floor-mounted air conditioner covers are also made of dark brown-stained wood to adjust the tone of the space. The contrast created by the confrontation between the rough iron material and the calm-colored wood was designed.
On the south wall facing the atrium, a large hole (originally intended as a window but sealed off due to excessive brightness) was covered with an oval canvas. Inside the wall, which reveals a honeycomb structure when the canvas is removed, lighting was installed, and a translucent tent fabric was applied in place of the canvas. This revitalized the dormant hole, giving it a new function as a source of illumination.The hole, which had been set up as a light source but had been closed, was updated as a device to obtain light once again. The walls of the guestrooms are partially made of permeable hollow polycarbonate panels so that the light from this iconic wall light can be enjoyed inside the guestrooms as well.
The movable shelves on the first floor walls were designed to allow both board and box shelves to be installed while using off-the-shelf shelf posts by custom fabricating brackets. Following this concept, we fabricated a movable bracket light that can be installed using the existing shelf posts. The same galvanized finish as the corrugated pipes was used for the finish.
By reinterpreting the elements of the existing architecture and re- constructing it by crossing it with a set-up for a new use, we have preserved the charm of the unique architecture of the corrugated house, while renovating it into a usable space with lodging functions. The goal was to contribute to the continued use of this architecture by ensuring that the designed space contributes to an appealing lodging experience.
