TAKIKO, Airhouse

Airhouse is a Japanese studio led by Keiichi Kiriyama. The practice offers innovative ideas for design that is contemporary but relevant across generations. For Office Building TAKIKO, the studio converted an old combined shop and residence in Nagoya’s Mizuho district into a shared office and co-working space.

Airhouse decided to further reduce the interior space by removing the original windows and constructing a new inner layer of exterior walls, thereby creating semi-enclosed terraces on each floor between the old façade and the new walls. All of the new outdoor areas contain potted plants, giving each office a lush green space. Even these small buffers between exterior and interior are enough to create a sense of distance from the city outside, making for comfortable, high-quality work spaces. The terrace plantings are equipped with automatic sprinkler systems so they can be easily maintained even when a particular office is not occupied. In order to allow occupants to either use the interior rooms or fix them up as desired, the studio intentionally limited our changes to a coat of paint over the stripped-down spaces when remodeling. They hope that Takiko will both enrich the working environment of those who use the building and serve as catalyst for neighborhood revitalization.

Photography by Toshiyuki Yano
Contractor: Kikuhara

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