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Architects Directory 2009

 

Stad Architects

Japan

BIOGRAPHY AND PRACTICE

Shimokawa Toru, born in 1983, describes himself as self-taught. 'I learned architecture and space by design by myself,' he explains, and set up Stad Architects (Shimokawa Toru Architect Design) in 2005. Toru strives to make timeless structures. 'I don’t follow immediate fashion,' he claims, 'because I want the building to be good even if it's still standing dozens of years later.' From its studio in Fukuoka, the office has built up an impressive roster of projects, both domestic and commercial.

The sense of social involvement is a key part of Toru's architecture, and the office's works explore how small-scale urban design can be extrapolated into larger, denser, buildings. There's also a reflective quality to his work, many of which draw design inspiration from the everyday, including traditional Japanese art and design, the art of the tea room and even the house where he lived as a boy. He cites the work of Tadao Ando, Peter Zumthor and Koichi Futatsumata as being especially influential.

THE HOUSE

The architects calls their conceptual house design the 'Hole', describing the scheme as a 'primitive building with a cave where an animal seems to live, and a huge lotus leaf keeps the rains away.' Set deep into the ground, the Hole places its inhabitants at eye level with nature, returning the domestic realm to a more fundamental state.

THE FUTURE

The unbuilt Small Wooden House project, designed in 2008, is a proposal for a quasi-vernacular private skyscraper, a vertical city of stacked shelters arranged around a central core, looking like a scene from an anime spectacular.

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