Excerpt: Ground Floor Office, designed by Takayuki Kuzushima and Associates, creates an atmosphere where people can be divided softly like a cafe and naturally stopped like a park. The business area of the office comprises a palette of soil and concrete flooring, with curved folded iron plate tables and pressed flowers frame to give the end user a different experience.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] The plan is to renovate the first floor of the building. The first floor is special in architecture. The floor is connected to the ground and the inside and outside of the building are close. People traveling around the city can see the floor and even think of it as a façade. The openness and the public nature of the first floor lie in its continuity with the ground. I thought it is important for renovation to plan the floor.
The program is a real estate agent’s store opening and office. The business area used by customers was required to have an island meeting space, a counter-face-to-face meeting space, and a toy space for children. In addition, the location is very busy in front of the station, and an atmosphere that makes it easy to stop by was required. Therefore, we aimed to create an atmosphere where people can be divided softly like a cafe and naturally stop by like a park.
Specifically, we decided to make the porch and the floor in the room continuous from soil and concrete. In general, flooring materials in a room are repeatedly arranged and often not given dimensions and treated decoratively. On the other hand, in the exterior plan, floor materials used by pavement and slopes are given dimensions and functions.
Here, I drew the boundary between soil and concrete as if I were drawing an exterior plan. Taking into consideration the dimensions of furniture and toys, stride length and flow line, the dimensions were given as carefully as possible to the floor material. However, there are no steps because the soil is hardened and finished flat with concrete. Only the texture is different.
Like a park divided into grass and pavement, we often walk on the pavement even if the floor is flat. Still, depending on my mood, I sometimes walk on the grass. I wanted to make such a difference in the interior. It feels like the table or toy is naturally placed in its place, creating a soft area that makes it easier to stop by from the outside. Drawing a plan is not dominant, making it flat but dividing the area, such a subtle feeling makes the interior a little outside the interior.
Counter table
The counter table is made by rolling a 3.2 mm iron plate with three different radii to make it self-supporting and a top plate with a groove is fitted in it. By making it like this, you can separate this side from the other side, and you can throw your legs out when you are seated.
Pressed flowers
Pressed flowers are used for the indoor signboard. A film that blocks ultraviolet rays is put on the glass surface to prevent the color from fading.
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