KAIT Plaza – Junya Ishigami
While working on the outdoor plaza to the KAIT workshop of Kanagawa Institute of Technology (completed in winter of 2008) Junya Ishigami + Associates considered two main characteristics: Versatility and the Semi-outdoor, and what these two would really represent within the project development.
The Versatility of the plaza was in this case considered from an experiential point of view instead of a practical one. Since the campus already had multifunctional spaces, with a lack of relaxation area, the users would benefit from a unique space suggesting a more ambiguous program. Therefore, instead of moving with a specific function in mind, the architect concentrated on the versatile experience of the space with an exploration on the ways to spend time there. “The process of passing time becomes the subject”.
The idea of a Semi-outdoor space arose as an in-between design solution, since the campus’s existing and unchanged built landscape was problematic. The latter evidently lacked a natural diversity and provided an artificial setting (school buildings). That is why the architect thought about retaining only half of the existing environment while subliming the other half with architectural elements. Given that the design is focused on the experience, the intervention was meant as a new “outside-ness”. This was achieved through specific architectural design techniques meant to create this new composed space.
Landscape can be experienced differently by people, whether physically or mentally. The environment of the plaza was meant to be “delicate and without a sense of restraint from the existing buildings”. The created landscape is meant for users to enjoy the scenery and spend a prolonged time looking into expanding planes of ground and sky meeting at the end of the grand curved surface and leading the view towards the boundless world on the other side of the horizon.
