This is the hair salon located on a roadside in rural area famous for wood resources, which needed to be rebuilt due to land readjustment. Cars come and go in front of the site all day long, and the surrounding landscape is dominated by parking lots. But you leave the city area a little, three-fourths of the city area is covered with forests. The forestry industry is thriving, and the wood called Nishikawa lumber has long been transported to Tokyo on rafts. The use of local forest resources is being promoted, but the use of woods in low-rise and non-residential buildings sector has not progressed. In particular, the construction method using CLT is difficult to spread from the viewpoint of workability and cost. And in this place, it was difficult to use wood for the outer wall because the fireproof wall was required. The client requested the light space with high ceiling, environment with greenery and woods, ventilation performance against Corona disastar, and the sustainable architecture.
Here, We thought of a natural architecture in which these diverse situations are mixed in multiple layers. We started by dismantling and architecturally recombining the woods and green landscape which is a resource of the city, and the mirrors and counters that make up hair salon, rather than the design, purpose, and form of the building. On top of that, we layered the scenery and greenery of past and present city, construction methods that make use of woods, environmental performance, and things.
We staggered the 2.3m square cut spaces with a big mirror (RC wall) that exceeds human scale, and placed a big wooden counter (CLT roof) in between. RC walls are structurally self-supporting against out-of-plane loads and can have many openings. CLT roofs create long-span ceilings without beams, reducing the weight of the building and suppressing the heat load. They are suitable for both fireproof and environmental performance, and can maximize the texture of woods. The combined structure of RC walls and CLT roofs can be attached by a simple and highly versatile construction method using only general angles and screws same as furniture. Indirect light shines through between the roofs and the wind that flows along roofs promotes indoor ventilation without curling hairs. Greens planted continuously inside and outside are amplified by reflection, and create the well-being environment covered with greenery. The woods that were once transported on rafts are used as roofs, and the cars that are currently coming and going on the roadside are reflected in the building, superimposing the landscape flowing horizontally from the past to the present. The mirror in hair salon changes from one that reflects a person’s appearance to one that reflects the scenery of the city, and one that reflects oneself in the scenery of the city. The small activity elements transcend the meanings, uses, and scales of things, and create a natural architecture in which things are multi-layered.