Satoko Shinohara
She then studied at the Japan Women’s University, graduating in 1981 with a Bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Home Economics.
While Kuma left to form his own studio in 1990, Shinohara continues to operate SDS, a small firm with 6 employees.
[11] Shinohara’s area of research is housing innovation in response to complex and changing household structures in modern Japan.
[2] She has co-authored at least six survey-style housing studies, published in The AIJ Journal of Technology and Design,[12] in addition to numerous books and articles on the subject.
Kuma scholar Botond Bognar describes it as such:... the Small Bath House in Izu ... remains one of his early remarkable designs, and whose many features, including the use of natural materials such as wood and bamboo, would return in some of his later buildings.
Although not as refined as his more recent works, this project ... is an unpretentious construction with a spatial and formal composition that is as light and refreshing as it is non-monumental.
[13]Bognar also describes its "unmistakeably fragmentary composition,” alluding to the “architecture of fragmentation” that he would continue to explore in later work.
[15] According to Shinohara, the Corte M Apartment building project in 1994 was “the starting point for [her] current work.”[3] This 443.4 m2 (4,773 sq ft) renovation project in Chiba added common spaces to the ground floor level of two buildings of studio apartments, activating the courtyard in between, and enabling interaction between the residents and the local community.
[3] In the early 2010s, Shinohara began garnering attention for her research and work designing “share” houses, a response to the growing percentage of single-person households in Tokyo (in 2012, 50 percent of Tokyo-ites lived alone),[16] the lack of available space, and the potentially unnecessary repetition of services across private studio apartments.
SHAREyaraicho, co-designed with Ayano Uchimura of A Studio in 2012, is considered “the first purpose-built share house in [Tokyo],”[27] creating “an alternative to the dominant single-dweller housing typology.”[28] The three-storey 77 m2 (830 sq ft) footprint building, with interiors finished simply with plywood and polycarbonate, features 7 private bedrooms with communal living, kitchen, and bath.
As in the Corte M renovation, SHAREyaraicho intends to reach out into the neighbourhood: The idea of communal living and nurturing connections extends beyond Share Yaraicho’s residents themselves to the local community.
At Share Yaraicho there is no door; instead, a soft plastic membrane that zips and unzips mediates the inside and outside worlds.
Step through the membrane and enter the building’s entrance hall – an airy 10-metre-high transition zone that operates as an accessible space to both “invite and unite” neighbours and friends.
For example, the restaurant is used by different chefs who specialize in different types of cuisine and the office is shared by multiple workers with free-address desks.
To vitalize the façade, the sharing concept is emphasized via external stairs that connect the terraces of every floor.
[21]Taichi specifies that the restaurant intends to be a community generating space, catalyzing the kind of vibrant dining life that can be found in a European town square.
[22] Taichi’s website also describes five other projects he has worked on under the SHARE umbrella, from offices, to residential renovations, and restaurants.
ISBN 4254605919 Satoko Shinohara, Sumiko Ohashi, Masao Koizumi, and Lifestyle Study Group.
“Compact Living: Benchmarking the Liveability of Micro-Housing for the Sydney Market.” NSW Architects Registration Board: Travelling Scholarships Journal Series 2017. https://www.architects.nsw.gov.au/download/BHTS/Rubenach_Tom_Compact%20Living_BHTS_2017.pdf
