Flow of Electrons
Case Study: Sendai Mediatheque
ARCHITECT: TOYO ITO
STRUCTURAL ENG. : MATSURO SASAKI
LOCATION: SENDAI, JAPAN
In designing a transparent cultural media center that is devoted to accommodate changing technologies, Toyo Ito showed a structural innovation, versatility and functional significance.
The building is a transparent cube with thin floor slabs suspended on organic grilled tubes. The skin of the cube is exposed from all sides emphasizing lightness and transparency and its slabs have a free form plan to allow for complex layout of informational system as well as flexibility of use. The most striking elements are the structural tubes, composed of thick walls steel pipes that carries function in its core.
The idea of this transparent cube is to shift the architectural form to a barrier free space by creating undetermined spaces. Spaces that are making a transient connection with the outer infinite atmosphere. Spaces with no previous intention on how they should be used. In addition to that the barrier free space corresponds to the need to provide specialized services to those with visual, auditory or other physical impairments.
Also Toyo Ito used media to create the architectural concept of Sendai Mediatheque. This project presents the concept of fluid space through technology, where media is creating an integral part of the contemporary urban environment. The design tries to capture the virtual nature of the computer world that characterizes our time.
Given the shape of the building might raise the question whether the Sendai Mediatheque really has a concrete, apparently could pass through a cube, but its limits are so widespread and transparent and it so dynamic and ambiguous that it is difficult to assign its limit and boundary.
This case study is an example of how digital technologies affect and shape the making of the space. For the paper, I ‘m interested to research the evolution of architecture in this context. Architecture has always been a multi layered discipline, how is the rapid development of the next computer generation going to form architecture? Will architecture turn from real to virtual spaces, spaces obeying the rules of quantum mechanics? Will architecture turn invisible, instead of adding materials to create the physical volume we are living in, it will create itself within the surrounding atmosphere through responsive and interactive design rather than a static one?