Advanced Architectural Design

Sendai Mediatheque
Toyo Ito
Parametric Approach
Located 300 km north of Tokyo is a city of one million known as the “City of Trees.”
 Concept

The main idea which is built on the

Sendai Mediatheque is an open and fluid space,
where the space is not predetermined. So that the
architect made five wishes for his work:
want not to create together
want not to create beams
want not to create walls
want not to create room
want not to create architecture

All a space where the flow of light and frankly between the
different levels of the building.
The Media is based on the metaphor of Aquarium, its
transparency and hence the similarity of the pillar with algae.

2
 Sendai Mediatheque spaces
Typology: Library

Spaces:
Street Level : Reception, a café and a store of books and magazines - extroverted to the street.
Second level : Children’s library, internet room and administration - furniture that defines the space, Transuclent curtain
wall(floating wall) separates the reading area and admin
Third level & Fourth level: a mezaninne are the area of lending books and reading rooms.
Fifth & Sixth floor : Exhibition galleries
Seventh floor : film and conference rooms
3
 Building Components

The resulting form consists of three basic architectural elements,

• Plates (the building's floors),
• Tubes (the plant-like columns which dissect each floor) and
• The skin (the facade or exterior walls).

4
 Floor

Ito retained the idea of the stacking Domino effect

with floor slabs, each floor plate composed of steel
plates sandwiching steel beams that radiate from
the columns rather than an orthogonal rhythm.

The columns would be replaced by structural

members placed asymmetrically - reflective of the
buildings modular nature.

Ito designed the floor plates as an open plan to allow for change in use. The building is supported by reticular truss like
tubular columns that appear to sway in section through the building giving the character of ocean seaweed.
 Idea of the Tube

Step 1: Humans with trees Step 2: Trees at random

Exploration 6
Step 3: Abstract of tree
 Parameter
Constraints : Height, Diameter
Varaiable :Position of the circle, Steel tube pattern

7
 Tubes and Plate Connection

Relationship of tubes and plates

Each Tube is only one story high and connects to the floor plates and tube above.
Toyo Ito plays with scale of the tubes by using them both as structural columns and for circulation within them. They do
not seem overbearing because they are only one storey height . The buildings open plan limit any solid / void relationships.
Although the building is a solid box, the transparency of the elevations give the appearance of completely void.
 Building Envelope
He described the "erotogenesis of his Sendai Mediatheque to be rooted in the experience of observing languorous plants and piscine movements
through the glass wall of a giant aquarium"
Ito suggested different facades according to the vocation of the environment
they face.
The main facade, located on the south side facing the boulevard is a double layer
of glass, very useful in the winter months, strong winds, is the most external and
extends the effect of slightly increasing lightness of the building.

The west side façade, which faces a lot, is opaque, coated with a metal frame
which leaves the emergency staircases in the north and east facades, creating
paths to neighborhood streets, they have different finishes on each floor: glass
polycarbonate and aluminum.

9
Development of the Sendai Mediatheque
The proposal has always been prototypic and conceptual rather than formalistic from the very
beginning. It consists of three elements of ‘plate’, ‘tube’ and ‘skin’.

• By ‘plate’ we mean six square slabs, and we attempted to diagramatically express different
modes of communication between people and things that may vary depending on the
media used .
‘Tubes’ are 13 tree-like
•‘Tubes’ tree elements that vertically penetrate the plates to organize and
integrate the latter. they are the flexible structural members acting also as the vertical
traffic line and as the space where energies (light, air, water, sound, etc.) and information
flow. presence of the tubes creates movements of natural elements and of electrons in the
homogeneous spaces defined by the plates.
Although by ‘skin’ we mean the elements that separate the inside of the building from the
•Although
outside. it particularly refers to the skin that surrounds the machine spaces located at the
top and the bottom of the building and the double-skinned
double facade facing the main street.
with its three simple component elements, the mediatheque will offer a space where a body
of electron flow and a primitive physical body which is linked with nature are integrated.
10