kengo kuma: kids academy taiyogaoka hoikuen

‘ kids academy taiyogaoka hoikuen’ by kengo kuma, ishiwaka, japan

all images courtesy of kengo kuma and associates

in a city bordered by the sea of japan, a modest, one-floor nursery realizes kengo kuma‘s aim for ‘a small architecture’ with a

far-reaching, single material palette. the nursery school in the peninsular prefecture of ishikawa uses the striking patterns of

wood grains to create a dynamic interior and exterior skin for the building. while the outer envelope is delineated by a pattern

of panels, the classrooms are clad in the mirrored curls of alternating ‘crotch-sectioned’ wood. the pair of such a grain pattern is

‘bookmatched’, meaning that irregularities in the flat-sawn plane are put end-to-end so as to highlight the beauty of the

alternately colored bands in the wood growth. the feather-like pattern is also marked by a landscape of dark knots in the planks,

flattened into a almost graphic pattern as they skin the simple geometries of the rooms. a more regular perpendicular pattern

characterizes the floor– a tectonic trope more daring explored in the differently oriented panels of the exterior. rectangular

apertures interrupt the large-scale wooden tiles and are often recessed from inner spaces to create a diffused tunnel of light. 

 large wooden tiles are arranged into a striking composition 

 interiors display a more restrained and more subtly dynamic wooden skin 

 knots in the wood create their own meandering lines of patterns 

 apertures are often recessed to admit a diffused amount of natural light and framed views into other spaces 

dusk shows the dynamically-skinned structure  

 construction views exposed the veneer of variously grained wood over OSB 

in progress view of the aperture installation  

 an interior space before the flooring was installed 

 a snowy view shows the already striking exterior