Polyrhythm of Prefab Architecture and Copper Screens
The project focused on a rental-apartment building located on Yuigahama-dori Avenue in the city of Kamakura. We were tasked with giving the building—designed by a house manufacturer using light gauge steel construction—a facade that reflected the city’s character. The design requirements were twofold: to use the house manufacturer's standard construction methods and one-room floor plan, and to select finishes from prefabricated materials.
Building entirely with prefabricated products allows for optimized material performance, cost-effectiveness, and ease of construction. However, it also results in a rather anonymous structure—a building that could be constructed anywhere under the same conditions. To counterbalance this, we aimed to introduce materials and details with complexity and temporality—qualities not usually associated with prefabricated materials—so that the building would stand out as a unique and distinctive presence in Kamakura.
The existing plan placed elements such as balconies, common hallways, and entrance canopies along the building’s perimeter. We adapted these functions into a single, semi-outdoor transitional space. Given the irregular shape of the site, we arranged the apartment units in an angular layout; this arrangement endowed the transitional space with a distinct form, allowing it to serve as a bridge between the surrounding environment and the interior.
To divide the transitional space from the exterior, we chose to install handmade copper screens. With their natural expression and hues that evolve over time, the copper screens act as a bridge between the uniform interior and the diverse elements and ever-changing nature of the city.
The appearance of the copper screens changes with the weather and time of day, eventually developing a patina. The rhythm set by the transitional space—set off by the copper screens—overlays the rhythm of the regular residential architecture, creating a polyrhythm. We believe the copper screens add another layer to the larger polyrhythm of Kamakura itself, a thousand-year-old city where old and new architecture exist side by side.