ARCH 445 | Johnny Saba
Background Profile Information:
Born in Seoul metropolitan city of South Korea, Toyo Ito is considered a great architect that had many projects in Japan. He is a great architect in that he is known to create conceptual architecture. He even was awarded one of the most prestigious awards for architects, the Pritzker Prize, for being one of the most important architects to create a simulated city.
He started his own firm by the name of Urbot, but changed it to Toyo Ito & Associates later. Some of his earlier important works were the White U and Silver Hut. Projects were made to be focused on urban settings, so that one exists in a dense city like Tokyo, Japan.
Important Works:
Later, some works include Tower of Winds and Egg of Winds, that reflect the certain contemporary approach he used to design a building in such a complex urban setting.
He often described architecture as clothing in urban settings for dwellers. Some of these architecture projects include Tod’s Omotesando, Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture, CapitaGreen, Three Mushrooms, and Mikimoto to just name a few.
He is an inspiring architect that influenced the urban fabric in a way that can help urban dwellers switch from a private life to a metropolitan life based on their location.
Major Works
Tod’s Omotesando, now Bottega Veneta Omotesando, is a seven-story building that used a front facade to make it feel like zelkova trees. It is essentially an aesthetic facade, but a structural system in itself, with concrete as the overall framework and frameless glass. This allows to support all the slabs on the inside.
Expanding beyond conventional architecture, he took inspiration from overlapping trees silhouettes to create a complex system. With that being said, as a tree is naturally strong in its structural support system, the facade’s branches would get thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top, with the thickest being the obvious trunks at the very bottom.
Mikimoto Ginza, also designed by Toyo Ito & Associates, is a nine-story building has irregular cut-outs on its facade, with the primary system composed of reinforced concrete and steel. This design allows the facade to be the primary structural system, supporting the floors inside, without the need for columns.
Being similar to the design of a Swiss cheese, the building has irregular windows to suggest that the concrete exterior has more to it than just aesthetic, but also made to support the floors even more.
Inspired by his previous project, the White U, Toyo Ito created the Silver Hut six years later to be created for him to live in. He experimented with light entering the building previously, so in this project he did the same, using techniques of conventional Japanese architecture like paper screens, however using aluminum to do the same effects.
This building’s main feature is the long-span braced-arches, with a few triangles left open for light, and some not. The arch-like roof is made from rhombic frames that are supported by beams.
Tod’s Omotesando Vs. Mikimoto Ginza
Tod’s Omotesando can be compared to Mikimoto Ginza because of their structural concrete facades that not only serve them as aesthetic purposes as their main attraction/design, but also serve as their main structural support system to support the building’s vertical loads of the floor plates, and the horizontal loads of any earthquake and/or wind loads.
They also draw inspiration from having no columns on the inside to support the floor plates. One common feature between both is to design their facades based purely on a random natural element, like Tod’s with a branch system, and Mikimoto with a random block of cheese, to show how a concrete system can be so strong in its structural integrity.
However, one major difference between the two, is the language of the facade. With the two being structural, one is very monochrome in its nature, by having plenty of shear walls and small perforations to communicate its idea. On the other hand, Tod’s has a very complex lateral system of braces, or in this case, branches acting as lateral support.
In Mikimoto Ginza, the perforations are rather holes and shapes plucked out, whilst in the Tod’s, the perforations are rather formed from the existing facade branches. In Tod’s, it uses more of the surrounding environment and trees to communicate a similar idea, whilst Mikimoto Ginza is its own identity.
They are both pretty tall, but Mikimoto Ginza is taller, which makes sense considering that it has an overall stronger shear wall system in able to handle that.
Sources:
https://www.arch2o.com/tods-omotesando-building-toyo-ito-associates-architects/
https://architectuul.com/architecture/tods-omotesando-building
http://www.toyo-ito.co.jp/WWW/Project_Descript/2000-/2000-p_13/2000-p_13_en.html
https://parametric-architecture.com/toyo-ito-and-his-8-iconic-works/#google_vignette
CAL POLY JAPAN 2024 