CHRIS FORD OFFICE

TAIMEN: A Single Family Residence

Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

October 2007

To forecast Japanese real estate design trends twenty years forward from now is an impossible task.  Yet, as an American designing a “House with Resale Value” for Tokyo Japan, one may consider the demographically-likely individual that will be purchasing a single-family residence in Tokyo at this projected time, and then analyze current cultural trends and phenomena with significant staying power and generational meaning.

 

Our proposal accepts and celebrates the 21st century modern man’s desire for industrial products and seeks to elevate the Tokyo single-family residence to the status of desirable cultural artifact.  This approach does not endorse Materialism, but rather acknowledges the emotional satisfaction associated with ownership of various industrial products such as the Canon EOS, Sony PSP, Nintendo Wii, Bravia Plasma HDTV, and an Apple iPhone.  At a larger scale, we also find the Japanese modified street drifter as a desirable industrial product in today’s Japanese teenage culture, due to the mercurial rise of drivers as cultural heroes, such as Nobushige Kuma Kumakubo and his Team Orange.  It is this last industrial product, the Japanese modified street drifter, that TAIMEN intentionally references as a means for creating a “House with Resale Value” in a timespan of 20+ years.

 

 

While the shaping and materiality of the TAIMEN residence is informed by the street drifter, this proposal creates additional value through the integration of technological systems such as photovoltaic panels, a single spindle wind turbine, and an exposed low-tech solar hot water container.  With these functional amenities working in conjunction with conventional environmental systems, the TAIMEN looks to lessen its reliance on municipal infrastructure until fully “hot-swappable” self-sustaining technologies are invented and brought to market.  Finally, this proposal looks to significantly reduce costs of site demolition normally associated with the exchange in Tokyo home ownership.  The TAIMEN is built using structural uni-body construction with integrated structural objects, which in turn, enables the main body of the TAIMEN to be transported by air, land or sea.  The remaining site-specific infrastructure, which includes modest structural, utility and access provisions, can then be demolished at sharply reduced costs to the selling party.

 

TAIMEN was awarded a 2008 Monster of Design award from the AIA Kansas City Young Architects Forum.  The TAIMEN design team consists of Chris Ford and collaborator Matt Goldsberry.