V oid Metabolism Densification in contemporary Tokyo, Japan In Japanese culture, building narrow houses on plots with limited space is fairly common. Architecture firms like Atelier Bow-wow have specialized in designing narrow houses for the particularly dense parts of Tokyo. These narrow plots are the bi-product of what Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, founder of Atelier Bowwow, describes as “Void Metabolism” - an inevitable result of Japanese constant renewal of Tokyo’s urban fabric4. In Tokyo in the 1960’ties an average property plot consisted of 250 m2, but due to an economic bubble in the 1980’ties, these plots where subdivided and sold resulting in a plot today consisting of 80 m2 in average5. The common typology used for subdividing these plots was the narrow house, trying to give most houses as possible access to the roads. Due to the building traditions in Japan, the average lifespan of a family house is down to 28 years in average, compared to England with 130 years in avarage6.The result is a city constantly changing its metabolism7, constantly rebuilding itself and leaving valuable space in its cracks. This makes it extremely difficult for architects and urban planners to stop this unstoppable nature of the city. Almost 1.8 million properties are owned by private landowners8 and can’t therefore be controlled easily. The challenge for architects in Japan is not so much how to change the city, but how to intervene. This gives Japanese architects like Atelier bow-wow a chance to challenge the narrow row-house typology and to create new forms of living in the centre of Tokyo. Inspired by what Atelier Bow-wow calls “pet architecture” new forms of typologies can be created in the leftover gaps in the urban fabric9. Pet architecture is described as buildings existing in the most unexpected places within Tokyo city limit10, as a way to exploit the forgotten space in the city. This form of architecture is often not designed by architects but by the people living inTokyo.These buildings have been built on challenging plots defined by the surrounding buildings, often with limited funds available. This form of radical architecture can be seen as extreme manifestation of the Japanese fascination with smallness and void-phobia11 and often as an effective way of densifying an already dense city. By building these narrow houses within these limited plots a new kind of architecture is created, one that doesn’t conform to any other architectural style, unexpecting by nature and therefore free from prejudice and pretentions.
ill. 08 - Pet Architecture - Tokyo
ill. 09 - Pet Architecture - Tokyo
ill. 07 - Pet Architecture - Tokyo
ill. 10 - Pet Architecture - Tokyo
ill. 11 - Pet Architecture - Tokyo
4 Tsukamoto, Y 2012, ‘Void metabolism’, Architectural Design, 82, 5, pp. 88-93, Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 September 2014.
9 Atelier Bow-wow, Behaviorology, 1st edn, Rizzoli, New York NY 2010, p 13
5 Architecture Behaviorology, Youtube, 11 Mar. 13, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AJ9wWZIop0, Accessed 23. Mar. 2014
10 Atelier Bow-wow, Pet Architecture, 1st edn, World Photo Press, Tokyo Japan, 2002, p 01
6 ibid.
11 Architecture Behaviorology, Youtube, 11 Mar. 13, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AJ9wWZIop0, Accessed 23. Mar. 2014
7 ibid. 8 ibid.
ill. 12 - Pet Architecture - Tokyo