Boltun Headquarters, designed by Yasuhiro “Hiro” Yamashita x Atelier TEKUTO, recieved Japan Concrete Institute’s 2019 Work Award.

The form of this office building was inspired by the shape of bolts, as the clients’ company is a retailer handling a vast range of nuts and bolts together with other architectural materials. Even though the budget was limited, we chose to build the structure in concrete, for the site sits along a busy street with heavy traffic and needed the soundproof benefit of concrete. Also, since the ground strength was extremely weak, reducing building weight was necessary. Thus, by shaving off concrete as much as possible, the unique structure with diagonal ribs and pillars emerged.

Hiro Yamashita thanks his long-time collaborator Shigeki Matsuoka (construction) and Assoc. Prof. Jun Sato (structural engineering), and of course, the client, Mr. Yamamoto, who has been a friend of Mr. Matsuoka since middle school!

Read more about Boltun

photo: SOBAJIMA, Toshihiro

photo: SOBAJIMA, Toshihiro

At the award ceremony (from left, contractor Shigeki Matsuoka,
client Ryutaro Yamamoto, architect Hiro Yamashita)

2019.03.08

A resort hotel project, Nest at Amami Beach Villas, designed by architect Yasuhiro Yamashita and his architecture firms Atelier TEKUTO and Amami Design Firm, has won the Asia Pacific Property Awards in two categories; Hotel Architecture; New Hotel Construction & Design. The awards will be presented at the Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park, Bangkok on May 14-15th, 2019.

Asia Pacific Property Awards that cover over 45 different residential and commercial categories are in their 26th year and is the largest, most prestigious and widely recognised program in the Asia Pacific regions. The awards are judged by an independent panel of over 80 experts, focusing on design, quality, service, innovation, originality and commitment to sustainability.

https://propertyawards.net/

photo by Nest at Amami Beach Villas 　http://www.nestatamami.com/

Nest at Amami Beach Villas, which opened in April 2018, is situated in the architect Yamashita’s home island of Amami-oshima.

In the course of studying the local history and nature, carrying out an extensive research on existing accommodations in the area, the major concept of the design became addressing the various “in-betweens” of the island. Yamashita himself searched and found the ideal site for this project. The position of the villas were decided upon between maximising both the retainment of the original landscape and taking advantage of the ocean front views. The vegetation was planned so as to maximise the restoration of indigenous vegetation that had deteriorated in between nature and human activities.

The architectural forms were inspired by the local traditional architecture and indigenous creatures, bridging the old with the new. Also, a cladding material was developed from locally sourced lumber dyed using a traditional textile dyeing method. Amami is currently in an in-between phase, awaiting to be listed as a World Natural Heritage Site. The ultimate goal of this project is to make a contribution to the island through adding an authentic and sustainable luxury resort facility to the local tourism infrastructure.

For more:｜about the project｜https://www.tekuto.com/en/works/nest_at_amami_beach_villas    
｜about the process｜https://www.tekuto.com/en/story/nest_at_amami

“It is a great honor to be recognized in this way. I am deeply grateful to my clients for giving me my first opportunity to design a resort facility in my home island Amami, after more than ten years of research on Asian resorts and hotels, I aspire to create and establish a new style of Asian resort by reconstructing the context of each region,” Yasuhiro Yamashita, architect

Interior of the Pool Villa, inspired by traditional architecture and local creature                

Private pool on the deck of each Pool Villa 

Pool Villas, clad with specially developed material 

Ocean Villas and Hillside Villas, reimagining the seaside villages of the past and restoring indigenous vegetation

all photos by SOBAJIMA, Toshihiro except top image by Nest at Amami Beach Villas

R・Torso・C, created by architect Yasuhiro Yamashita of Atelier TEKUTO, structural engineer Assoc. Prof. Jun Sato and building materials researcher Prof. Takafumi Noguchi, both of Tokyo University, received the fib 2018 Awards for Outstanding Concrete Structure. The award was presented at the 2018 fib Congress Gala Dinner on October 9th, 2018 at the Melbourne Park Function Centre in Melbourne, Australia. The fib Awards for Outstanding Concrete Structures is presented every four years with the goal of promoting international recognition of structures that excel in design and demonstrate the versatility of concrete as a structural medium.

R・Torso・C (Shibuya, Tokyo; completed 2015) is a micro-residence on a small site of mere 66.67m2 with a total floor area of 103.74m2. The clients requested a house with exposed concrete inside and out. Furthermore, they wanted the concrete to be ecologically ambitious. Therefore, a 100% recyclable concrete was developed from almost scratch, by Yamashita, Prof. Noguchi, Assoc. Prof. Sato with the help of other collaborators.

R・Torso・C won the Best Work Award of Japan Concrete Institute in 2016, and received the Overall “Excellence” Award and first place in the category of low rise building at the 2017 Excellence in Concrete Construction Awards hosted by ACI (American Concrete Institute.)

Yamashita and the team are grateful for the acknowledgement of the big impact this small piece of architecture has on society, and are willing to keep on contributing to humanity through architecture.

R・Torso・C

Left:Yasuhiro Yamashita Right:Prof.Noguchi

–Read more about R・torso・C

–Read more about SHIRASU concrete

One of TEKUTO’s architectural model will be displayed in the “UNBUILT: LOST or SUSPENDED” exhibition held at ARCHI-DEPOT, the only museum in Japan
specialized in architectural models. Our exhibit is a  model of a “museum of phonomena”, a conceptual project without any specific site or clients.

Date
August 4 (Sat.) –October 8 (Mon.), 2018

Venue
ARCHI-DEPOT Museum gallery B

Hours
11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. (admission until 6:00 p.m.)
Closed on Mondays (Open on a Monday when it is a National Holiday, in which case closed the following Tuesday.)

Admission
Adults ¥3,000 / Students ¥2,000 / Under 18 ¥1,000

We are proud to announce that our office building project in Warabi, Saitama (about 30min by train, from Ueno in central Tokyo) is nearing its completion .
By courtesy of the client, we will invite visitors on May20(Sun) from 10 am to 4pm (JST.)

Yasuhiro Yamashita and his architecture studio Atelier TEKUTO have designed more than 200 urban micro-houses and compiled methods to make the most of limited space.
Yamashita has applied his methods to this small office building. The chosen material was concrete because the site faced a boulevard with heavy traffic and the client requested a sturdy building that did not tremor every time a truck passed by.
Another problem was the fragile land that used to be swamp land in ancient times. The weight of the building needed to be reduced. So Yamashita went a step further to strip the concrete structure to its bare minimum, exposing diagonal and intersecting beams and columns that we call a “muskmelon” or “skin of a cantaloupe” structure for its random looks.
The dynamic structure of concrete columns and beams running diagonally was made possible by teamwork of Yamashita, structural engineer Jun Sato, and constructor Shigeki Matsuoka, the same team that created the acclaimed concrete residence, R・Torso・C.

For registration and further information, please contact:
Miki Sato, Atelier TEKUTO
Tel:03-6439-5540
E-mail:media@tekuto.com

We are proud to announce that “House with a View of Harbor and Sunset; FUNAGURA, “ one of the Den-Paku inns that TEKUTO renovated, received the Guest Review Awards 2017 of Booking.com!

http://den-paku.com/amami 

Competition for the COMMUNITY CENTER IN NEPAL is now on a call for entry! Yasuhiro Yamashita from Atelier TEKUTO is honored to be a jury member.

Nepal, its environment has a difficult aspect for its development with a complex topography and a rough climate.
In addition, the country was hit by the terrible earthquake in 2015, and it is still in the midst of recovery.

The competition is encouraged to design the COMMUNITY CENTER IN NEPAL, which helps the rebuilding the country by using local materials and technology. The winning work will be actually planned to be built in mountainous area about 20 km from Kathmandu.

Eligibility : Students and young architects less than 3 years after graduation. Register now!

An article on our micro-house project, R・Torso・C, was published on ArchDaily.com.

Yasuhiro Yamashita of Atelier TEKUTO flew to Guangzhou, China’s third largest city today. There, he will take part in a three-day international forum, “2017 Guangzhou International Design Forum,” (November 9-11, 2017) as the only Japanese lecturer.
This international forum is sponsored by Guangzhou Municipal People’s Government, Guangzhou Housing and Urban-Rural Construction Committee, and also by China’s largest architecture magazine, “Urban Environmental Design(UED).”
Thomas Herzog and Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid Architects) are among the international speakers participating on the first day.
Yamashita will speak tomorrow, at a sub forum titled “Art Into City: Public Space & Public Art Forum” and his theme is “The Philosophy of Zen and Creative Architecture.”

An article about our ACI(American Concrete Institute) Overall Excellence Award winning micro-house project, R.Torso.C  appeared on Dwell.com.
“A Concrete Micro-House in Japan Works All the Angles”

Atelier TEKUTO’s work “R・Torso・C “ won the OVERALL EXCELLENCE AWARD and first place in the Low Rise Buildings Category in 2017 Excellence in Concrete Construction Awards, hosted by ACI (American Concrete Institute) .
The acknowledgement of eco-friendly, sustainable SHIRASU CONCRETE, developed together with Prof. Noguchi of Tokyo University and structural engineer Jun Sato, along with other collaborators, is a great honor. We hope that it will bring much-needed attention to the depletion of natural resources for concrete.

Previous winners of this prize were, Italian Pavilion Expo 2015(Milan, Italy) by Nemesi & Partners, and Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (Marseille, France) by Rudy Ricciotti.

https://www.concrete.org/news/newsdetail.aspx?f=51701216