Architectural Biographic of Kingo Kuma

Kingo Kuma 1

Q. Arch Info

2020-2021

Architectural Biographic -1-

I belive that the 21st century will be an era of material.

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Quick Facts about Kengo Kuma Synopsis Family Early life Education Personal life Early training and influences Architecture career Top buildings Kuma lab Influences Awards resources

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Kengo Kuma

 Quick Facts about Kengo Kuma • • • • • • • •

Born: Kengo Kuma, 8 august 1954, Yokohama, Japan Nationality: Japanese Occupation: Architect Practice: Kengo Kuma & Associates Website: www.kkaa.co.jp He is known for his love of wood, which he incorporates into most of his buildings He is a strong advocate of Japanese traditions.

He has a strong regard for nature and fuses nature with his designs so that they integrate together in harmony.

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 Synopsis Kengo Kuma is a Japanese architect who is considered to be one of the most important contemporary Japanese architects of our time. He is also a professor at the University of Tokyo graduate school of architecture. He has his own practice known as Kengo Kuma and Associates, and is also a prolific writer with his books published in several languages.

 Family Kengo Kuma was born to a Japanese family. His father was also an architect based in Japan who loved modern architecture. Kenzo Tange, who was also a Japanese architect, was considered by Kengo Kuma as his godfather.

 Early life Kengo Kuma was born in Yokohama in the Kanagawa prefecture in 1954.

Kenzo kuma’s father was also an architect who loved modern architecture and would take him to buildings by Kisho Kurokawa, Kunio Maekawa, and others.

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 Education For his early education, Kengo Kuma attended Eiko Gakuen junior and senior high schools. He then joined the university of Tokyo and graduated in 1979.

He then moved to New York to enroll at Columbia University as a visiting researcher from 1985 to 1986.

 Personal life Very little is known about Kengo Kuma’s personal life. He, however, revealed in an interview that he is a big fan of music and has musician friends such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, with whom he shares a similar philosophy.

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 Early training and influences Kengo Kuma’s interest in architecture began when he was 10 years old when his father took him to visit the Yoyogi National Gymnasium by Kenzo Tange. After completing his bachelors, Kengo Kuma worked at Nihon Sekkei and Toda Corporation.

 Architecture career After graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1979, Kengo Kuma worked at Nihon Sekkei and TODA Corporation. Kengo Kuma founded the Spatial Design Studio in 1987.

In 1990, he established his own practice, Kengo Kuma and Associates.

He has since proceeded to design some of the most unique structures both in Japan and worldwide.

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His Top Buildings  V&A Dundee, Dundee (2018) Dundee, Scotland UK Finished / 2018.09 Museum, Learning Studios , Museum Shop, Café 8,900 m2 The new building for UK’s Victoria & Albert Museum (London) stands on the waterfront of Dundee, a city in the north of Scotland. The building site faces the River Tay which flows south of the Dundee River. The structure projects out over the water, an idea which we proposed for a new type of architecture which blends into the natural environment and the surrounding landscape. We were intrigued by the beautiful cliffs of Orkney Island in the north of Scotland and wanted to convey its natural randomness through the architecture, so we came up with the idea of stacking layers of long slabs of precast concrete with varying angles, to realize a façade with subtle nuances and dynamics.

 Nagasaki Prefectural Museum, (2005) Joint project with Nihon Sekkei Inc. 2-1 Dejima-machi, Nagasakishi, Nagasaki, Japan Finished / 2005.03 Art Museum 9893.07m2

I decided that I wanted to link two sites separated by the canal in the middle into one art museum that has display space open to the canal, integrating the water, canal and nature with the art inside. The roof is covered with grass, making it another “green museum”.

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 Gallery of Under One Roof , 2016 EPFL campus -Lausanne, Switzerland 2012.5-2016.11 3500 m2 Partner in charge: Javier Villar Ruiz

The new campus for Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)is named Artlab, which consists of three programs – an Arts & Science Pavilion, a Technology & Information Gallery, and the Montreux Jazz Café. The three boxes are tucked under a grand pitched roof that stretches as long as 235m. Between each box, we designed an aperture area that generates two axes. The two lines help to marshal the flow of people and reorganize all the buildings in the campus.There is a Japanese saying, “living under one roof,” which means various and different individuals get together and team up, and Artlab is exactly the architectural translation of this expression.

 Great (Bamboo) Wall House, (2002) .

Commune By The Great Wall Jingzang Highway, Beijing, China Finished / 2002.04 Villa 528.25m2

Our first aim was to learn from the formality of the Great Wall. We were constantly attracted to the fact that the Great Wall has never been an isolated object. The formal quality of it running almost endlessly along the undulating ridgeline without being isolated from the surrounding environment was the nature we were attracted. That appealed to us as a criticism toward the conventional form of ‘architecture’ that tends to seek to be an isolated object among the environment. Thus our intention was to apply this nature of the Great Wall to the act of dwelling. This is what the house is titled ‘WALL’ for, instead of ‘HOUSE’ 7

 Xinjin Zhi Museum Xinjin, Chengdu Sichuan prefecture, China Finished / 2011.12 Museum 2,353 m2

The theme for this art museum which is located at the foot of Laojunshan Mountain. The permeable screen façade is made using locally available tile. An airy screen with an interesting texture was created by fixing the tile that has a natural rough texture made at local workshops using traditional techniques with stainless steel wire.

 Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum , 2011 Kumo no ue no Gallery 3799-3 Tarougawa, Yusuhara-cho Takaoka-gun, Kochi Pref., Japan Finished / 2010.09 Museum 445.79 m2

We adopted a unique cantilever bridge design for this structure, a traditional technique that has been forgotten in Japan. The structure is created by using laminated wood members with small sections, and gradually extending the bridge girder a little at a time from both ends by using many overlapping members. The only remaining structure of this type in Japan where wood planks are used instead of a steel structure is the “Sarubashi” in Yamanashi Prefecture.

In order to adapt the structure to the site, a bridge pier is provided in the center to receive the vertical load, and the load on both sides was balanced, making it a bridge structure which should be called a “balancing toy bridge”. A roof that has the opposite shape of the bridge structure covers the studio and gallery that are provided on both sides at the top of the slope.

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ďƒ˜ Asakusa Tourism Centre (2012)

2-18-9 Kaminarimon,Taito-city , Tokyo, Japan Finished / 2012. 3 Tourist Information Center , Office, Gallery, Cafe 2159.52 m2

In the corner premise of just 326 m2 across Kaminari-mon Gate, the building was required to accommodate plural programs such as tourist information center, conference room, multi-purpose hall and an exhibition space.

ďƒ˜ Mont-Blanc Base Camp , 2016

Les Houches, France 2012-2016 Office 2,500 m2

The project was to design a headquarters building for Blue Ice, a company specialized in products for climbing and mountaineering as well as a business incubator. The site looks up to the peaks of Aiguille du Midi and Mont-Blanc.

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 Kuma lab Kengo Kuma also heads a Research Laboratory based in the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Tokyo’s Hongo Campus, known as Kuma Lab. Kuma Lab was established in 2009, and is involved in carrying out extensive research on the methodology for bridging physical, sustainable and information designs.

Kuma Lab has a staff of over 200 people sourced from different places in the world. The main practice philosophy for Kuma Lab is the production of designs that connect areas of architecture with the landscape and to traverse sustainable design, physical design, and information design.

 Influences Kengo Kuma’s design process is inspired by the light and the nature of the site of the building. His influences come from unique explorations of glass, concrete, stone and wood. He is also influenced by the natural environment, which he strives to harmonize with architecture and the human body through his work.

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‫ڕێزلێنان و خەاڵتەکانی‬ 1997: Architectural Institute of Japan Award for “Noh Stage in the Forest“.

1997: AIA DuPONT Benedictus Award for “Water/Glass” (USA).

2001: Togo Murano Award for “Nakagawa-machi Bato Hiroshige Museum”.

2002: Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award (Finland).

2008: Energy Performance + Architecture Award (France)Bois Magazine International Wood Architecture Award (France).

2008 (commercial category).

2009: Decoration Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France).

2010: Mainichi Art Award for “Nezu Museum”.

2011: The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize for "Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum“.

2012: The Restaurant & Bar Design Awards, Restaurant Interior (Standalone) for Sake No Hana (London).

2016 Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2016 .

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resources • • • •

www.kkaa.co.jp https://www.archisoup.com/kengo-kuma https://www.archdaily.com/search/all?q=kengo-kuma&page https://www.slideshare.net/VikrantSanke/kengo-kuma-andsome-of-his-works

See you soon ………………..

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