About Area Park Studio:
Designed by Atsushi + Naoko Kasuya / KAO, Area Park Studio is a base in Japan for our friend and renowned Korean photographer Area Park. Park wanted to establish a base for his activities in Japan, the hometown of his wife who is a lacquer artist. After searching for a suitable location, they commissioned us, as Japanese architects, to design the building.
As Park?s photographic works constantly question photography?s role and remind us of what we have forgotten, his studio had to also represent this outlook.
© Kim Yongkwan
Area Park Studio’s location:
The site was located next to a tree-covered mound called Nakazato Fuji. When Japan was still a ?closed? country, faith in Mount Fuji was strong among the commoners, and these kinds of small Fujizukas (manmade mounds representing Mt.Fuji) were often constructed in areas across Edo (old Tokyo). It was perhaps Park?s artistic sensibilities that led him, almost inevitably, to find this sacred site ripe with spirits of the earth that so many Japanese people have long forgotten. Area Park Studio that would adjoin such a site should be simple and primary as if it had grown out of the earth.
© Kim Yongkwan
The client?s demands included an atelier, a gallery, a guest room, and spaces for living. The gallery was placed in the center to create a space in which living and creating are well-integrated and flow together. The interior space has only a few doors so that all the spaces are connected both in the...