Client: Toho Gakuen School of Music
Location: Chofu, Tokyo Japan
Summer Solstice
Azi / Alt: -162.61° / 77.27°
Rise / Set: 04:26 / 19:01
Daylight: 14:34 Hrs
Winter Solstice
Azi / Alt: -174.50° / 30.74°
Rise / Set: 06:47 / 16:32
Daylight: 09:44 Hrs
The building replaced an earlier building on the site, one which had a more conventional arrangement, cellular practise rooms lined a double loaded corridor, notably with no natural light. In place of this, Nikken Sekkei proposed a porous system, with buildings as a kind of colony, inverting negative voids and positive volumes. Classrooms and circulation to be used as musical rehearsal spaces as well as to maintain acoustic independence. Yamanashi, after sitting down with tutors and students to determine what they wanted from their new campus, found “their priorities – sunlight, natural ventilation and visually open practise spaces”. He also researched the exact scale and proportions of music practice rooms suitable for each instrument. These rooms are seperated with spaces that provide acoustic separation as well as vistas through the building to the outside area. So unorthodox was his design the schools’ management threatened to halt the project, and allowing the building to continue construction was predicated on it ultimately becoming a storage facility. But with much recognition from the world of architecture and awards recognition, including from the Royal Insitute of British Architects, the building was eventually admitted use by the school.
Tomohiko Yamanashi is the architect responsible for the design. The firm he operates under, Nikken Sekkei, has an entire page on their expertise section of their webssite dedicated to Biophelia, which “focuses on integration with life and nature”. They take great detail to outline how “the use of natural light is important”, referring specifically to it’s effect on our circadian rhythm, melatonin secretion in response to light and the variance in productivity caused by natural light. Daylighting is clearly an aspect of design highly valued by the company and have in turn had an influence on Yamanashi.
The form of the building is unusual (fig.3.1), but for a purpose. It is comprised of 23 raised cube-like structures, raising to 11.3m, that protrude as if independent of each other, but are all connected to make up a single structure. This is all within the bounds of a site area of 3305.22 msq., with an orientation
There is a clear emphasis on conduction components. The buildings form comes into effect by way of skylighting in a very unique way, with its’ use of irregular porosity being a foremost feature. The deep plan is broken up using courtyards (fig.3.2), which are partitioned by glass at the basement level to allow an even distribution of natural light around the corridors and between classrooms (fig3.3). There are two central shafts in the centre of the building that act as lightwells for this purpose , an access point for the core zones of the building to natural light, giving even, glare free light to the interior on multiple levels (fig.3.4). A cross-section of the building displays the uniformity of distribution here (fig.3.5). Sunlight is considered both across the width of the building as well as across it’s depth. On the northern side, there is *an opening at ground level to a courtyard that matches the depth of the basement floor, supplying light by way of partitioned glass. Glass also lines the ground floor above it, though encroached by an overhang above it, still provides another source of light from this side. In the centre, the main lightwell gives toplighting to the centre of the building, the most divorced from sidelighting opportunities, both on the first and ground floors.
Finally on the northern side, a vertical partition bounces sunlight into the interior on the first and ground floors MAYBE BASEMENT AS WELL, acting as a reflector. Tall windows are also used on each of the facades to supplement this unique structure, with at least one for each ‘cube’ (fig.3.6). This is adequate task illuminance for the more specialized musical practise that take place in them. Their placement is also interesting, with care to have them facing every direction (fig.3.7). This is seen as the sides of the protruding structures allow windows to be placed to cover a separate orientation, accommodating for changes in the time of day.
With multiple levels of the building, especially a basement floor, and the segregated, modular nature of the classrooms, the interior is designed to encourage the displacement of natural light inside the building as far as possible (fig.3.8)
The floor is a soft, light grey, giving a diffuse reflection, and a soft, uniformity of light, also reducing glare. The visual comfort differs in the spaces between classrooms. Though the access to light is not as strong, the visual comfort does not demand it, for a space that is used to get from A to B. And though there are tables and chairs for students to work (fig.3.9), they are positioned near windows where the light is evidently strongest, thereby, still fulfilling task illuminance.
