Waro Kishi had an interesting experience designing a small bridge in Kumamoto. After the bridge was built, citizens began to have boat races on the river. Water not so deep, so even if the boat collapsed, the players could walk in, and the bridge became a target for these races (Crudeli, 2017). From a social point of view, it was very successful for him because it changed the society of that city. Even private houses, or various non-public projects, can transform neighborhoods. He believes that architects have a great responsibility in the community.
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Waro Kishi believed that architecture always faces the public space, society, even if people are talking about private houses, it is part of the public space. Though a small building, once completed, it will change the society where built it.
In his youth, Waro Kishi did not care much about history. In 1994, he was commissioned to rebuild a historic Japanese temple, Daitoku-ji, one of Kyoto's most important temples. The site's owners, who decided to demolish the old wooden structure and build a new concrete building. They decided to also invite Wakuden, an expensive old Japanese restaurant, to have an elegant dining room there. They asked Waro Kishi to do a design because in those years he was known for creating small buildings in urban environments. The restaurant they want to build was about 60 square meters, so he was an expert in that kind of building. That was a kind of training in the field of Japanese Architecture for him, to study the Japanese-ness. In Kyoto, people can find many contemporary buildings, which resemble historic buildings. The elements are historic, but the spaces are not historic at all. We can call it "fake". Waro Kishi is searching for the Japanese-ness in a contemporary way.
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Most of Waro Kishi's architectural works are concentrated in the Kansai region of Japan, including Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, and Nara. Therefore, the architect, who was born in 1950, is considered to be the next generation of "Kyoto architects" after Tadao Ando ("Unsocial" Waro Kishi, 2012). At the age of 31, Waro Kishi set up his own architect studio. In the third year of his independent practice, he won Commercial Space Design Award. After that, he has won Japan Architects Association Newcomer Award, Kyoto City Kyoto Regional Housing Hope Award, Encouragement of works by the Architectural Institute of Japan, Good Design Award, Asia Pacific Interior Design Prize, Osaka City Housing Design Award, Hong Kong Designers' Association Global Design Prize, The 6th Architect Award Encouragement Award. All of these make him famous in Japanese architect.
The buildings of Waro Kishi have a clear, elegant, and detailed modern feel, often with a good sense of openness and light. Waro Kishi pursues accuracy, constraint, and abstraction in architecture like machine. What’s more he attaches importance to the expression of tradition, so that the architecture has a deep cultural connotation. The houses he designed are all named after the place in which the building is located, inseparable from the context of the surrounding environment, and truly rooted in the site. His architectural concept is "industrial and rural character", that is, combining "industrialization" and "rural character" (One house One life, 2020).
https://k-associates.com/works/house-of-fukaya/
Waro Kishi innovated the courtyard space and developed the traditional Japanese urban house "Machiya", which is characterized by its wide and deep facade. Waro Kishi designed “tsubo-niwa” as a forbidden garden, where nature is integrated, and the seasons of the year can be observed. He developed “tori-niwa” into an unroofed atrium, which is the core of the house. It strengthens the connection between the horizontal and vertical directions of each space. Because the space is small, Waro Kishi centered on the courtyard in the center of the house. To enclose the courtyard and pool, he divided the building itself into three sections. From the outside, the whole house looks like a "box" wrapped in molded steel. He used the steel frame to show the nature of the building, rather than decoration. The grids and modules embody both industrial values and the traditional culture of Japanese architecture. The kitchen, dining room, living room and bedroom are all incorporated into the 4.5-meter-high "box". There are no structural load-bearing walls inside the box, but slim steel columns carry the entire weight of the roof. Everything in this house is precisely designed, including the reflection of the white walls and polished ceramic tiles, and it hints at his thinking about the relationship between sky and water, interior and exterior. At that time, Japanese media commented that the birth of House in Fukaya opened the public's eyes to the possibility of local architects using enclosed buildings to build "luxury houses" in small spaces.
References
"Unsocial" Waro Kishi. (2012, April 16). China Business News. https://www.yicai.com/news/1629331.html
Crudeli, A. (2017). Home, away from home. https://www.centoventigrammi.it/waro-kishi-interview/
One house One life. (2020). Japanese design master Waro Kishi creates a home that "will be you for the rest of your life”. https://www.sohu.co/a/366025765_120531659
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