Junya Ishigami - KAIT Workshop

This workshop, on a university campus in the suburbs of Tokyo, is a facility where students can work on their own creative projects. The space is used by clubs to produce human-powered airplanes, hobby furniture and small object-making, and on public holidays it hosts craft workshops such as ceramic making for the local children. The programme includes areas for woodwork, machinery engineering, ceramics, printing, electron-engineering, offices and so on.

We inserted these programs in a single 2000m2 space in order to permit its flexible use. However, what the client required was not an open plan that could accommodate a single enormous project, but rather conditions in which an array of activities on various scales could be implemented in different types of spaces within the building. While flexibility was required, it was not necessary for all of the spaces to be uniform. They were expected to be considered as individual spaces that would emerge from their functional characteristics. This space is not only intended for use by large groups of people, as it often accommodates activities by pairs and individuals as well.