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MDC／Dental clinic in Morioka Aoyama
MDC／Dental clinic in Morioka Aoyama
Morioka, Japan
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Other Projects by EA Research and Design Office / Takeru Shoji
MDC／Dental clinic in Morioka Aoyama
Morioka, Japan
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2024
SIZE
1000 sqft - 3000 sqft
BUDGET
Unknown
A Gentle Place to Lean One’s Body
— A Dental Clinic as a New Corner of Landscape in Aoyama, Morioka —
The site is located in Aoyama, Morioka, a place once known as Kanbugahara, where the view of Mount Iwate opened magnificently to the north.
In recent years, the area has been rapidly transformed by the influx of national retail chains and large roadside stores, gradually losing the quiet residential atmosphere that once defined it.
Within this shifting landscape, the project aims to rediscover the kind of form once seen in Morioka—a form that gently invites one to lean, rest, and breathe—and to create a small dental clinic that quietly belongs to the town.
The building adopts the mansard roof, commonly seen in the rural areas of Iwate.
Historically, this roof type emerged from the pragmatic relationship between local materials, snow, and livelihood.
Rather than replicating its appearance, the project reinterprets its rationality: an open one-room space that contains a series of smaller private rooms, combining openness with efficiency.
In doing so, the traditional logic of the mansard roof is reimagined for a contemporary medical environment—where climatic adaptability and spatial flexibility meet.
At the base of the building, a small artificial hill has been formed, inspired by the undulating topography of Morioka, where paths cut through hills and soil builds up to form gentle slopes.
Partially embedding the structure into the mound creates a sense of being “within the ground,” giving patients and visitors the feeling of walking through terrain rather than simply occupying an interior.
The hill continues upward into the waiting area and further into the treatment rooms, linking the act of walking through architecture to that of walking through landscape.
A defining gesture of the exterior is the deep, low eave, recalling the shaded façades that still remain in districts such as Konyamachi.
This restrained form casts a quiet shadow along the corner of the street—serving as both a small critique and a soft stopper against the homogenizing forces of contemporary roadside architecture.
Rather than asserting presence, the building calms the atmosphere of the neighborhood through its composure.
The structure is timber, its interior wrapped entirely in laminated Japanese larch, a species that grows abundantly in the mountains of Iwate.
Applied across the inner surface of the mansard roof, the larch infuses the space with warmth and a gentle scent, unifying staff and visitors under a single expansive canopy.
It creates an environment that is at once protective and inclusive—a spatial atmosphere that supports the everyday intimacy of medical care.
A single wood stove placed on the ground floor provides heat for the entire building.
Warm air is collected near the ceiling, mixed with fresh air purified by a lossnay ventilation system, and circulated beneath the floor.
From there, it rises softly through narrow slits along the windows, enveloping the space in radiant warmth.
This system avoids direct airflow and instead heats the architecture itself, creating a gentle, continuous thermal environment that is comfortable even for patients lying open-mouthed and vulnerable during treatment.
In summer, the same circulation system distributes cool air, allowing the building to breathe quietly through the seasons.
The plan consists of a large waiting area, eight compact treatment rooms, and the paths that connect them.
Three of the rooms extend toward the garden, blurring the line between inside and outside, while five others are shaped like small individual shops.
Together, they form a small town within the building.
The waiting area becomes the town’s park; the corners of the treatment rooms, its street corners.
Within this micro-urban structure, encounters, glances, and quiet exchanges arise naturally, suggesting a new model of clinic that is both civic and intimate.
At the intersection corner, a large opening with a deep sill invites people to sit and rest.
Here, the architect describes the design intent as creating “a somehow curious and mysterious window that connects one town to another.”
Through this window, the outer town of Aoyama and the inner “town” of the clinic gently overlap.
People on the street can glimpse the soft movements inside; patients within can feel the rhythm of the city outside.
It becomes a threshold where architecture mediates between communities—between activity and repose, between the ordinary and the reflective.
Through this “somehow curious and mysterious window,” a modest yet profound connection is formed between two landscapes.
Amid a changing urban fabric, this clinic seeks not monumentality but composure.
By learning from the forms of the region—the mansard roof, the low eave, the earthen hill, the corner window—it reconstructs a quiet order of landscape within daily life.
In doing so, it becomes a new refuge of calm and continuity, a gentle place to lean one’s body within the evolving townscape of Aoyama.
— A Dental Clinic as a New Corner of Landscape in Aoyama, Morioka —
The site is located in Aoyama, Morioka, a place once known as Kanbugahara, where the view of Mount Iwate opened magnificently to the north.
In recent years, the area has been rapidly transformed by the influx of national retail chains and large roadside stores, gradually losing the quiet residential atmosphere that once defined it.
Within this shifting landscape, the project aims to rediscover the kind of form once seen in Morioka—a form that gently invites one to lean, rest, and breathe—and to create a small dental clinic that quietly belongs to the town.
The building adopts the mansard roof, commonly seen in the rural areas of Iwate.
Historically, this roof type emerged from the pragmatic relationship between local materials, snow, and livelihood.
Rather than replicating its appearance, the project reinterprets its rationality: an open one-room space that contains a series of smaller private rooms, combining openness with efficiency.
In doing so, the traditional logic of the mansard roof is reimagined for a contemporary medical environment—where climatic adaptability and spatial flexibility meet.
At the base of the building, a small artificial hill has been formed, inspired by the undulating topography of Morioka, where paths cut through hills and soil builds up to form gentle slopes.
Partially embedding the structure into the mound creates a sense of being “within the ground,” giving patients and visitors the feeling of walking through terrain rather than simply occupying an interior.
The hill continues upward into the waiting area and further into the treatment rooms, linking the act of walking through architecture to that of walking through landscape.
A defining gesture of the exterior is the deep, low eave, recalling the shaded façades that still remain in districts such as Konyamachi.
This restrained form casts a quiet shadow along the corner of the street—serving as both a small critique and a soft stopper against the homogenizing forces of contemporary roadside architecture.
Rather than asserting presence, the building calms the atmosphere of the neighborhood through its composure.
The structure is timber, its interior wrapped entirely in laminated Japanese larch, a species that grows abundantly in the mountains of Iwate.
Applied across the inner surface of the mansard roof, the larch infuses the space with warmth and a gentle scent, unifying staff and visitors under a single expansive canopy.
It creates an environment that is at once protective and inclusive—a spatial atmosphere that supports the everyday intimacy of medical care.
A single wood stove placed on the ground floor provides heat for the entire building.
Warm air is collected near the ceiling, mixed with fresh air purified by a lossnay ventilation system, and circulated beneath the floor.
From there, it rises softly through narrow slits along the windows, enveloping the space in radiant warmth.
This system avoids direct airflow and instead heats the architecture itself, creating a gentle, continuous thermal environment that is comfortable even for patients lying open-mouthed and vulnerable during treatment.
In summer, the same circulation system distributes cool air, allowing the building to breathe quietly through the seasons.
The plan consists of a large waiting area, eight compact treatment rooms, and the paths that connect them.
Three of the rooms extend toward the garden, blurring the line between inside and outside, while five others are shaped like small individual shops.
Together, they form a small town within the building.
The waiting area becomes the town’s park; the corners of the treatment rooms, its street corners.
Within this micro-urban structure, encounters, glances, and quiet exchanges arise naturally, suggesting a new model of clinic that is both civic and intimate.
At the intersection corner, a large opening with a deep sill invites people to sit and rest.
Here, the architect describes the design intent as creating “a somehow curious and mysterious window that connects one town to another.”
Through this window, the outer town of Aoyama and the inner “town” of the clinic gently overlap.
People on the street can glimpse the soft movements inside; patients within can feel the rhythm of the city outside.
It becomes a threshold where architecture mediates between communities—between activity and repose, between the ordinary and the reflective.
Through this “somehow curious and mysterious window,” a modest yet profound connection is formed between two landscapes.
Amid a changing urban fabric, this clinic seeks not monumentality but composure.
By learning from the forms of the region—the mansard roof, the low eave, the earthen hill, the corner window—it reconstructs a quiet order of landscape within daily life.
In doing so, it becomes a new refuge of calm and continuity, a gentle place to lean one’s body within the evolving townscape of Aoyama.
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