Strange Japanese architecture

These buildings made by Kengo Kuma and Associates are rather bizarre and unique, to say the least...


Here is a Brand clothes store in Japan. The Kengo Kuma Website says:

"In seeking balance between the cost and the creation of various organic patterns, a ‘vegetable wall’ was born, which is made of structural plywood with two kinds of width and three types of aluminum connectors. From just beside, it looks that pentagons and parallelogram are repeated and extended further in the interior like a cave, creating a honeycomb-like internal space with lots of different cells. By changing the cutting of sections, each cell in the wall has become practical fittings, like a shelf or box to place the products. Rather than setting in an individual wall or furniture separately in the shop, we wanted to create a single, sequenced and functional wall that covers the entire space."

                                                  Strange, no?

              It's like shopping in a honeycomb store...

                              Here is a Starbucks also in Japan:

"The building is made of 2,000 stick-like parts in the sizes of 1.3m – 4m length and 6cm section. Total length of the sticks reached as far as 4.4km. We had experimented the weaving of sticks for the project of Chidori and GC Prostho Museum Research Center, and this time we tried the diagonal weaving in order to bring in a sense of direction and fluidity. Three sticks are joined at one point in Chidori and GC, while in Starbucks four steps come to one point because of the diagonal – a more complicated joint."

                    An odd architecture for a coffee shop.


                             -Article excerpts and images via http://kkaa.co.jp/