Sukagawa City, Fukushima, Japan
Japanese Architects Tsunagu Sato and Kazuki Sogo of Ishimoto Architectural & Engineering Firm, together with Hiroyuki Unemori of Unemori Architects teamed up to collaborate on this new community center in Sukagawa City in Fukushima after the massive earthquake in East Japan in 2011.
The community center was rebuilt, deliberately involving the citizens in the planning process.
Special workshops helped to define the demands on the new building as an organic architecture with different zones, resulting in a community center with many platforms—a library, a room for sharing, a playground and a terrace.
It is a complex facility created as a reconstruction project of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
By building a place for activity of multiple functions such as library for lifelong learning, child care support, and museum in the center of the city, the facility was planned to revitalize the city and interaction of its citizens that had been lost.
The megastructure is designed based on the “misalignment of the floors.”
The staggering effect creates an outside terrace on each floor and visually connects the different indoor facilities such as a library, childcare facility and museum, allowing just the right amount of distance from each other to co-exist in the building.
Suspended floors produce an astylar space and their thickness addresses the issue of noise and securing space for building facilities, providing various solutions with the power of design.
The development of this new public facility well reflects the complex and diverse times today.
Tsunagu Sato, Kazuki Sukagawa Community Center
Architects: Ishimoto Architectural & Engineering Firm and Unemori Architects
Client: Sukagawa Community Center
Photographers: Kai Nakamura/ Kawasumi-Kobayashi Kenji Photograph Office Yojii Funaki / Shota Hiyoshi
