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Sasame Workshop
Sasame Workshop
Saitama, Japan
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Sasame Workshop
Saitama, Japan
Firm
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2024
SIZE
3000 sqft - 5000 sqft
BUDGET
$1M - 5M
Sasame Workshop
The scenery that softly drifts around what we consciously perceive often returns more vividly in memory or dreams than the object itself. This project gives form to that unconscious gaze—peripheral vision—within an industrial district. Through a balcony enclosed by varied polycarbonate panels and plantings, landscapes mediated at different resolutions emerge, resonating with the surrounding factories.
Memory and Landscape
When absorbed in work or conversation, do we truly notice the placement of furniture or the view from the window? Often, on nights after significant events, it is the trivial backgrounds that return most vividly in dreams. These ambient surroundings—hazy and ungraspable—seem to carry a quiet intensity beyond conscious perception.
Located on the left bank of the Arakawa River in southwestern Toda City, Japan, within an industrial district, the client—a local HVAC contractor—faced both a deteriorating office and an inefficient working environment. A split-level configuration reduced overall height and volume while shaping a sectional form that connects sightlines, air, and light. Transparent movable partitions along the internal stair allow flexible environmental control, reducing HVAC loads while subtly transforming interior views.
Avoiding Excessive Resolution
The main workspace on the second floor opens onto a planted terrace that filters southwestern sunlight and buffers adjacent factories. Like the terrace’s vegetation and distant greenery, the industrial scenery and mechanical hum are embraced as part of the working environment.
Exterior walls and interior partitions employ polycarbonate panels and glass with varying specifications, calibrated to different degrees of visibility, wind resistance, and light diffusion across each space. Plantings, weathered siding, the river embankment, rusted corrugated rooftops, and staggered interiors form layered, shifting scenes. The noise of nearby factories hums like a basso continuo, weaving into the landscape.
Through these layered mediations, the workshop produces landscapes of multiple resolutions—neither fully transparent nor fully opaque. This relaxed, porous condition allows imagination to settle between memory and the present, offering an alternative model for contemporary industrial architecture: one that accommodates productivity while embracing ambiguity, atmosphere, and the subtle richness of everyday surroundings.
“Peripheral vision integrates us with space, while focused vision pushes us out of the space, making us mere spectators.”
— Juhani Pallasmaa
The scenery that softly drifts around what we consciously perceive often returns more vividly in memory or dreams than the object itself. This project gives form to that unconscious gaze—peripheral vision—within an industrial district. Through a balcony enclosed by varied polycarbonate panels and plantings, landscapes mediated at different resolutions emerge, resonating with the surrounding factories.
Memory and Landscape
When absorbed in work or conversation, do we truly notice the placement of furniture or the view from the window? Often, on nights after significant events, it is the trivial backgrounds that return most vividly in dreams. These ambient surroundings—hazy and ungraspable—seem to carry a quiet intensity beyond conscious perception.
Located on the left bank of the Arakawa River in southwestern Toda City, Japan, within an industrial district, the client—a local HVAC contractor—faced both a deteriorating office and an inefficient working environment. A split-level configuration reduced overall height and volume while shaping a sectional form that connects sightlines, air, and light. Transparent movable partitions along the internal stair allow flexible environmental control, reducing HVAC loads while subtly transforming interior views.
Avoiding Excessive Resolution
The main workspace on the second floor opens onto a planted terrace that filters southwestern sunlight and buffers adjacent factories. Like the terrace’s vegetation and distant greenery, the industrial scenery and mechanical hum are embraced as part of the working environment.
Exterior walls and interior partitions employ polycarbonate panels and glass with varying specifications, calibrated to different degrees of visibility, wind resistance, and light diffusion across each space. Plantings, weathered siding, the river embankment, rusted corrugated rooftops, and staggered interiors form layered, shifting scenes. The noise of nearby factories hums like a basso continuo, weaving into the landscape.
Through these layered mediations, the workshop produces landscapes of multiple resolutions—neither fully transparent nor fully opaque. This relaxed, porous condition allows imagination to settle between memory and the present, offering an alternative model for contemporary industrial architecture: one that accommodates productivity while embracing ambiguity, atmosphere, and the subtle richness of everyday surroundings.
“Peripheral vision integrates us with space, while focused vision pushes us out of the space, making us mere spectators.”
— Juhani Pallasmaa
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