MSD at HOME with Osamu NISHIDA

George Estiano introduces Osamu Nishida, a Japanese architect and founder of ON Design Partners. Nishida's practice emphasizes community, dialogue, and everyday life in architecture. His firm, with 35 employees, works on diverse projects, many of which challenge conventional housing models by integrating public and private spaces. Nishida then introduces his office in Yokohama, highlighting the use of models and green spaces to foster creativity and collaboration. He explains that "interactive architecture" is a core concept in their projects, challenging the traditional focus on privacy in housing and exploring how architecture can sustainably open to the public to enrich daily life.

The first project, Fikka, is a combined house and shop on a 30-square-meter lot in Tokyo. The owner is a collector of Scandinavian design objects. The main challenge was to connect the exhibited objects with the private residence and the neighborhood. A large central shelf serves as the key element, linking the shop side with the residential floors. Displayed items are visible from the street, creating an interesting relationship with the neighborhood and making residents feel connected to the city even in their private spaces. The goal was to create a shop as an extension of daily life, with the shelf acting as a fluid boundary.

The second project is the Yokohama Apartment, a complex for four residents, primarily young artists, completed in 2009. The client wanted rentable apartments with spaces for artists to work, exhibit, and host events, rather than ordinary studio apartments. Unlike typical Japanese apartments with common corridors, each Yokohama apartment has a private entrance and staircase, making everything above the first floor private. The ground floor features a 70-square-meter common space called 'the platter' with a 5-meter ceiling, supported by triangular wooden columns containing storage and bathrooms. This common space is designed to be accessible and visually connected to the neighborhood, with flexible boundaries created by transparent plastic cuttings. Residents share power and hot water and hold monthly meetings to discuss the use and maintenance of the common space. This area hosts various events, from tea ceremonies to art exhibitions, fostering a strong sense of community and demonstrating that architecture and community are interconnected.

The third project is the Cooperative Garden, a condominium project in central Tokyo. Unlike traditional condominiums sold after completion, residents could contribute to the design before construction. The project redefines collective housing by treating each of the 10 floors as an individual site, allowing residents to customize their exterior walls and balconies. This creates a vertical stacking of diverse houses with unique gardens and terraces, accommodating individual lifestyles. The building's structure allows for flexibility, with each frame supporting two floors. This approach results in a rich outdoor environment that integrates with the surrounding cityscape and natural elements like cherry blossoms, promoting a shared value of collective living while preserving individual expression.

The fourth project is an international student dormitory in Kanagawa, designed to promote cultural understanding among students from diverse backgrounds. The goal was to create a 'town-like' dormitory with intimacy and diversity, inspired by the analogy of a school of fish forming a larger entity or a painting with multiple focal points. The core concept is 'sustainable communication' through sharing and collaboration. The design incorporates numerous 'social space ports' – small, fragmented meeting areas (20-80 square meters) in the atrium, allowing students to choose their level of interaction. Workshops were held with future residents to gather ideas for these spaces. The dormitory also features a 'living street' with shared kitchens, workshops, libraries, and studios, designed to be a continuous sequence of spaces that encourages organic interaction and discovery. The building's multi-centered design and connection to the existing forest and terraced areas further enhance this interactive environment. Individualization is encouraged by allowing students to personalize the space outside their rooms.

The presentation concludes with a Q&A session. Osamu Nishida emphasizes that dialogue is crucial in architecture because buildings are permanent. He and his team prioritize talking to people and using physical models and sketches to stimulate communication, both within the office and with clients, as models offer a more physical, experiential understanding than digital tools. Addressing concerns about challenges in projects like the Yokohama Apartment, Nishida explains that while some noise complaints arose from lively events, open communication among residents and ON Design Partners helped resolve issues. He also discusses the balance of public and private space, noting that ON Design projects often feature smaller private areas and larger, more sophisticated public spaces, reflecting a willingness to live in these types of environments. The discussion also touches on the site-specific nature of their designs, the importance of researching local contexts, and the long-term adaptability of their projects despite changes in residents.

Further questions delve into the Cooperative Garden project, clarifying that it consists of 8 units across 10 'sites' where some units span multiple floors. While this project aimed for common views and facades, direct data on resident interaction like the Yokohama Apartment was not collected due to the private nature of the units. The discussion reveals that an elevator provides access to each unit, and external staircases are primarily for evacuation. Regarding building materials, the concrete structure was the only pre-determined element for the Cooperative Garden, with residents choosing all interior finishes and garden uses. Finally, the interaction with students for the dormitory project is explored, highlighting that students tend to express ideas from a first-person perspective, emphasizing personal interests. Nishida suggests that a more comprehensive understanding of the site and social context would lead to smoother communication with clients.