The entrance lobby of a building in the Yokohama National University campus was transformed into a space for collaborative activities and presentations. The space serves as a new base of operations for the YNU Global-local Education and Research Center.
For this renovation project, Minamiashigara-based forester Seiichi Sugiyama donated Sugi, Hinoki cypress, and Japanese cucumber tree logs. Sugiyama hoped to articulate the importance of forestry, a crucial contributor to the maintenance of healthy river systems, through architectural space. One black Sugi log, one white Sugi log, several small Hinoki logs, and one Japanese cucumber tree log; these materials had to be used effectively to create a local educational/social space. The building lies next to an important road that connects the campus to the outside, and the south side of the building faces a beautiful forest that has been left from a golf course that existed before the current campus was constructed. As the poorly-lit preexisting lobby suffered from a depressing atmosphere, the aim of this project was to introduce a space of delight that connects intimately to the neighbouring forest.
The lobby was occupied by structural protrusions and a relief sculpture filling the walls, and it possessed many openings that led to other spaces. Consequently, the lobby lacked large enough walls that could accommodate exhibitions. As a solution, a three-dimensional, multipurpose presentation wall was designed. Its wooden framework articulates a sense of transparency and depth, reorganizing the lobby space into an exhibition space. The frame’s vertical and horizontal members are made of Hinoki cypress and Sugi respectively, and the structure itself spans across the space while maintaining a 15 degree angle from the wall, reaching the elevator hall. The angled frame articulated a sense of movement that manifested as a “flow” that came from the full height window facing the forest. Further design considerations were dedicated to emphasizing this dynamism, such as offsetting the vertical members from each other. Japanese cucumber tree was used for the planks.
In addition to the wall, a new wooden floor made of Sugi was placed. The existing building used the same respective floor pattern and wall finish for both the interior and exterior to articulate continuity between the road and the forest. Following this visual gesture, the black and white planks obtained from the Sugi logs were combined and arranged to mimic the existing floor pattern. However, the inconsistency of wood cut out from a limited number of logs requires special consideration. This was taken advantage of by arranging the differently-colored planks in a way that creates a gradation; the most black and white planks were placed on the entrance side, and planks with less hue contrast were subsequently placed nearer to the forest-facing windows in order of decreasing white/black intensity.