Kengo Kuma and small architecture: Aore Nagaoka
Japanese architect Kengo Kuma won multiple awards, including regional/national awards in Japan. They are not necessarily flamboyant in appearance, but designed so that the owners, visitors and users can enjoy them. Kuma also leverage locally sourced materials, professionals and craftsmen for his projects. Even public buildings can be popular destinations when designed by Kuma. Find the AORE Nagaoka, a local government-run facility in a mid-sized city in Northeastern Japan that is attracting more than a million visitors every year.
About Aore Nagaoka (City Hall)
The Aore Nagaoka is a city hall for Nagaoka City (population 275,000) in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. It is one of Kengo Kuma’s most successful public projects in Japan that received Good Design Award (2012), Architectural Institute of Japan prize (2014), and the City Planning Institute of Japan Award (2014).
But the building may not be well known, compared to other Kuma’s projects as it doesn’t look fancy, especially from outside. What was so great about this project?
Top: the model of Aore Nagaoka
Bottom: the Aore Nagaoka
Kengo Kuma’s design concept for Aore Nagaoka
The Aore Nagaoka is a city hall for Nagaoka City (population 275,000), the second largest city of Niigata Prefecture in Northeastern Japan. Nagaoka is not Tokyo, but it’s not small either. It’s a nice-sized community with a lively city center. The city hall is located in a busy central area, and because of that, the property wasn’t big enough to accommodate all the functions of the local government. Some departments used rented offices in the neighborhood. In a sense, the administration was scattered in the area to become part of the local community.
Kuma took advantage of the situation and came up with an idea of a city building that did not have explicit exteriors or envelopes. He believed that it fit Nagaoka’s administration that already dissolved into the local community that blurred the boundaries that separated government’s territory from the local community. The focal point of the project was an open space at the center called “nakadoka,” which was surrounded by multiple functions that would involve citizens, such as city meeting hearing room, city hall walk-in offices, a multi-purpose hall and a sports arena (for pro basketball games!). Situating a hearing room on the ground floor with glass walls was a novel idea, but was welcomed by citizens as it symbolized an open city council meetings.
“Nakadoma” was designed to be a multi-purpose space where public could host different events, and people responded very well. They became creative and started organizing a variety of things there, making it a vibrant place where people interacted, mingled, and and sold local products.
Nakadoma and the surrounding areas of Aore Nagaoka.
“Naka” means center, and “doma” is dirt area
traditional Japanese people’s house used to have.
It was the “outside area inside the house”
where people could work on a variety of projects.
The nakadoma area is covered with intricately assembled steel slabs, through which the Sunlight comes through, creating random shadows.
The model of Aore Nagaoka.
You can see the roofs above the nakadoma area.
Small architecture and Aore Nagaoka
The Aore Nagaoka was Kuma’s answer to typical public projects, which are large, bland concrete boxes that do not really care how people would feel when they are inside. They may have some sleek exterior design, but still, it has nothing to do with how people would feel about it or use it. Leveraging his love for small-ness, Kuma removed divisive walls that are unavoidable for large buildings, and created several small intimate areas, including spacious voids instead.
But still, Kuma remembers, you cannot make a public building like a city hall really small, because it physically requires a large structure. So Kuma decided to finish the project with warm, soft and intimate details that would make people feel home. He chose locally sourced Echigo cedar and assembled them to create 千鳥 (chidori) checker patterns to cover the surface of the buildings. But you have to be really careful, Kuma adds. “If you just glue small cedar plates (only about 6-7 cm wide), it will end up looking like brown-colored concrete.” Kuma’s chidori checkers came in slightly different sizes so that they represent subtle randomness, which was technically challenging. But the results are beautiful. “It’s as if a lot of small birds are flying in the sky.” Chidori means thousands of birds.
While the Aore Nagaoka provides critical administrative functions for citizens, it does not house many shops or stores. “This place has to function as a junction for citizens. They can use it to receive services, participate in events and meet with people, but it’s ideal that they go outside the building to eat, shop and do other things,” Kuma observes. “For a small piece of architecture, the services it provides also have to be small.”
The Aore Nagaoka excites people not by its fancy, sexy design, but by how it’s used and enjoyed by them. That’s the power of small architecture, that is of the people, by the people, and for the people.