Kumamoto Station

The project by Ryue Nishizawa for the east exit to the high-speed train station is a simple architectural gesture that interprets the context.

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It looks like a tennis racket or a drop of water, for those who like nature metaphors. Ryue Nishizawa design for the east entrance to the high-speed train station in Kumamoto in southern Japan, is only the first part of a long-term urban development plan to be completed in 2030. With a simple architectural gesture, it resolves complex logistics generated by mass transit today and also serves as a place for socialization and relaxation. The large roof protects users from the strong Kumamoto sun and was designed with a cloud in mind, according to the architect. Its size seems very modest for now but Nishizawa explains the role that the site and the urban scale will play upon its completion.

The contemporary city is dysfunctional when modelled only on the functions of transportation. The urban landscape around Kumamoto Station seems to be no exception. Many buildings here do not engage in any kind of dialogue. Concessions to "open space" are laughable, represented by asphalt expanses at the crossings of the chaotic flows of cars, bicycles and pedestrians. With a strong yet simple gesture, Nishizawa's "cloud" identifies a field for interaction.

The east entrance of the high-speed train station designed by Kumamoto Ryue Nishizawa, looks like a tennis racket or a drop of water.

"Life can't be contained within a single lot. People's sense of living expands beyond it, effectively erasing all borders,"[1] writes the Japanese architect. Similarly the margins of this project, defined by shadows, are fuzzy and vary with the sun's path. In Japanese, there are two words, Kinjo and kaiwai, that describe the concept of neighbourhood; both incorporate the concept of being in the middle of something. In the vague and undifferentiated urban space, made of asphalt with its white and yellow painted signage, the roof shelter can restore a sense of centrality, of belonging. Those who pass through this place feel protected and at the same time closer to others.

In contemporary Japan, public space is mostly confined to shopping centers, galleries, bars—closed and private places but with free access—which replace the role of the Western square. Even the choice of giving up the vertical closure has a strong symbolic value. It means opening the station space to the urban landscape and social life, inviting people to use the street as a place of relations.

The Japanese words kinjo and kaiwai, that describe the concept of neighbourhood; both incorporate the concept of being in the middle of something. In the undifferentiated urban space around Kumamoto Station, made of asphalt and painted signage, the roof shelter can restore a sense of centrality, of belonging. Those who pass through this place feel protected and at the same time closer to others.

The structural aspect makes this project particularly interesting. The slab is a continuous surface without beams, supported by a few slender columns.

Free forms are a constant in much of Nishizawa's recent work. He writes, "One of the important things about a freehand drawing is that everything can be different and everything can be the same. When you look at nature, you see many sorts of apples, for example, and they have different shapes. They are all the same but they are all different."[2]. In the Kumamoto project, these forms are generated by the flow of vehicles and people who pass daily through the station area. An approach of this kind can be described as "diagrammatic," when architectural form is the physical transposition of a functional analysis. This is quite common in modern projects but in the work of Ryue Nishizawa—as also in that of Kazuyo Sejima, for example—it finds entirely new forms and meanings. At Kumamoto Station, form is not the simple "outline" of traffic flow diagrams as often happens in such design approaches.

Life can’t be contained within a single lot. People’s sense of living expands beyond it, effectively erasing all borders.

In a vague and undifferentiated urban space, composed of asphalt with painted white and yellow signs, the shelter is able to restore a sense of centrality of membership: those who pass through this place feels protected.

Here the process is more complex: the system of covered walkways adjacent to the station is divided into various elements. Each refers to a different traffic situation in terms of function and dimension. Nishizawa's idea of each of these is akin to pieces of a mosaic which, when composed with others, provide an image of how this part of the city works. Thus this method seems to belong both to a constructive process as well as one of "dismantling"—another theme dear to Nishizawa. He starts from an initial program—as in the celebrated the Moriyama House—which is then decomposed into its constituent parts and reassembled in novel ways.

"A very clear structure, lightness, transparency, and the ability to see the organisation;" this structural philosophy makes this project particularly interesting. The roof slab is a continuous surface without cross-beams, supported only by a few slender columns. Forcing the components of the project to their most extreme relations, Nishizawa gives a sense of lightness to the roof. In the glow of bright summer days, the white of the upper surface can get pleasingly lost in the sky, reducing its expression as shelter to the shade of the surface of its underside. In this way, depth is eliminated, resulting in what the architect calls in some of his writings the "neutralization of structure." For those who compose with the mosaic technique, it can so happen that some of the pieces will resemble each other. In superficial appearance Kumamoto Station can give a sense of déjà-vu, but in its contextual relationships it generates ever new images. As Mexican poet and japanophile Octavio Paz wrote, As Octavio Paz writes, "An organism that wants for nothing, like desert plants that secrete their own food, Japan lives off of its own substance." "Organismo al que nada le falta, como esas plantas del desierto que secretan sus propios alimentos, el Japón vive de su propia substancia" [4]. When Nishizawa's station is completed, we will see another new image that can interpret the meaning and functioning of this part of the city; a node that does not need to feed off its environs but rather, nourishes the urban landscape with its presence. Matteo Belfiore, Salvator John A. Liotta

Notes:
1. Aa. Vv., Tokyo Metabolizing, La Biennale di Venezia. 12. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura, Toto Publishing, Tokyo, 2010.
2. El Croquis – Sanaa 2004-2008, El Croquis Editorial, Madrid, 2007.
3. Ibidem
4. Octavio Paz, Tres momentos de la literatura japonesa in Las peras de l'olmo, México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1957.

Kumamoto Station east exit station square
Function: Passenger Station, resting and relaxing place
Completed: 2018
Architectural design: Ryue Nishizawa Office
Construction: Tekkon Kensetsu
Structures: Structure Environment
Location: Kumamoto Prefecture