This massive, slightly brutalist multipurpose building called the Kadare Cultural Centre in Yurihonjo City, Japan, is a product of Japanese practice, Chiaki Arai Urban & Architecture Design. A street previously divided the site for the project, forcing the project to be broken up into undesired autonomous volumes.
Courtesy of Chiaki Arai Urban & Architecture Design
The architect’s solution was to unify the building and replace the road with a pedestrian street named Wai-Wai Street, which runs indoors north to south, through the building. This street features shopping and culinary attractions and serves as a gathering, launching-off point for visitors to the cultural centre.
Chiaki Arai Urban & Architecture Design
Around the above mentioned street, the building's program features a library, community centre, planetarium, and a multipurpose theatre. Spaces throughout the building are organically ordered and inconsistent- in a way emulating the way that mangrove trees grow.
Chiaki Arai Urban & Architecture Design
Designed after several workshops with the public, the interiors take into account aesthetics, the human scale, and usability for specific functions. Windows punch through the facade in a similar fashion to the way spaces are oriented- irregular of a pattern yet located exactly where they are needed.
By: Matt Davis
Chiaki Arai Urban & Architecture Design
