Kitagata Apartments, Gifu Japan, Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa (1998)

This project was launched through Government Housing in Gifu, Japan.  Kazuyo Sejima was the designer of the "Sejima" wing in the larger housing complex.  Sejima based the design around new ways of thinking about collective housing, including connection to the outdoors, circulation, and access.  Each of the 107 units has an open terrace which connects directly to the outside.  The circulation band along the northern facades is covered, but completely open to air.  The interior engawa, or passageway linking rooms along the south facade within an individual unit, is enclosed, but framed with glass, thus exposing it to the outside world.  Each apartment has two or more direct entrances from the public circulation corridor.  This was key to Sejima’s view of looking at both the traditional (family), and non-traditional (rented units) apartment user-types.  There are 30 different unit types, each of which has some formation of at least one bedroom, one dining/living space, one Japanese room, and one terrace.  These units interlock into the overall building form, which is oriented to provide maximum southern exposure to the most units possible.