Tokyo studio Key Operation has completed an apartment building in Yokohama covered with thin concrete panels that create a random pattern of light and shadow across the facades.
Key Operation designed the Kannai Blade Residence to replace a four-storey office block on a corner site close to Yokohama's Kannai Station.
Top: the building is wrapped in black concrete fins. Above: it stands 11 storeys tall
The 11-storey building contains 94 privately owned studio flats with floor areas ranging between 22 square metres and 47 square metres. The compact units are designed for single occupants or couples without children.
The architects wanted the new building to complement the post-war structures that give the neighbourhood its distinctive character. The robust but open appearance of these low-rise concrete buildings is translated into the facade treatment of the Kannai Blade Residence. "Our strategy was to emphasise the concrete floor slabs in order to amplify and echo the area's horizontal linearity," said Key Operation. "We also used the paper-thin concrete fins to break the monotony and introduce playfulness."
Concrete fins have a 40-millimetre thickness
Vertical concrete panels with a thickness of 40 millimetres are placed randomly across the building's facades to break up the overall visual mass and create a decorative pattern that conceals the distribution of the apartments.
The depth of the panels varies between 200 millimetres and 900 millimetres, with...