This project is arenovation of a portion of a large warehouse building located in Minato Ward,Tokyo.
The building has historically been composed as a mixed-use complex centered onwarehouse functions, incorporating a bowling alley, restaurants, and offices.

The building once housed Juliana’sTokyo, a disco symbolic of Japan’s bubble-era culture. Today, adaptivereuse projects that take advantage of the large open spaces characteristic ofwarehouse architecture are underway on each floor, and the building continuesto embody a period in which urban consumer culture and warehouse architectureintersected.

The area addressed in thisproject is located along an evacuation route and is subject to regulatoryconstraints. In order to secure sufficient ceiling height for the loading andunloading yard on the floor below, the floor level was raised, resulting in alow-clearance space with a compressed ceiling height. Although the area hasgood access from ground level, the accumulation of these conditions made itdifficult for proactive proposals for use to emerge over time.

Rather than regarding thissituation as a simple case of unused space, the project redefines it as an“interpretive margin” produced by architectural constraints and accumulatedhistories. The space functions as a lounge that accommodates multiple uses—includinga satellite workspace, rentable meeting rooms, and a seminar room—while alsomeeting the requirement for two-directional means of egress on the floor. Basedon this premise, the entire space was reorganized.

Within the interior, railsare laid out following an egg-like plan geometry, from which narrow strips ofsemi-transparent vinyl curtains are suspended. Instead of permanent walls,these elements create soft boundaries with permeability and mobility. The streamlinedpartitions guide users naturally toward the evacuation exits withoutinterrupting their lines of sight.

The compressed ceilingheight is reinterpreted through spatial operations that extend the field ofvision horizontally, transforming what could be perceived as a constraint intoa continuous spatial experience closely aligned with the scale of the human body.

EXTRAROUND is an attempt to assign a new role to a space that had supportedsuccessive provisional uses under past leasing conditions. By layeringrequirements related to evacuation routes, mixed-use programming, andlow-clearance spatial conditions onto the temporal layers accumulated withinthe building, the project introduces an additional cycle of renewal into thecomplex.