ar+d
Hiroyuki Arima + Urban Fourth	Atelier and gallery	Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan	December 1999
Koji Okamoto Touching the ground of its marvellous landscape lightly, this gallery-studio explores space and light with economy of means. Click on image to view larger version in new window
On a rocky hillside overlooking a paddy-covered plain and the distant bay of the Genkai-nada sea on Kyushu, the most southerly island of the Japanese archipelago, the atelier-gallery for an artist is five cubic volumes, climbing about 17m of the slope. The artist wanted a space for the public to view her works while she could, if need be, work in private in her studio. The gallery (for concerts and readings when not being used for exhibition) is the topmost volume, luminous and calm. On its roof is a terrace. Apart from offering panoramic views of plain, distant sea, and mountains behind, this level is an outdoor exhibition area which includes a glass showcase. Light can be introduced down through this transparent device into the middle of the gallery through an adjustable ceiling flap. Gallery and atelier are separated by five similar rotatable flaps which allow different degrees of inter-penetration between the two. It is a subtle building, allowing many nuances of use and perception. It sits gently on the slope, its structure arranged to disturb nature as little as possible – white volumes are lofted off the hillside on columns irregularly placed to avoid the native rocks. Materials are ordinary for Japan: cedar planks, fibre-cement boards, corrugated polycarbonate sheet and ‘tin plate’. We were all impressed by the gentleness of the design. There were worries about the crafts-manship, and a degree of over-elaboration in the form, but it is a fine building for all the niggles. Architects Hiroyuki Arima, Sayuri Koda, Toru Sakiyama Photographs Koji Okamoto