K project is a proposal to a Park-PFI (Private-Finance Initiative) program* for K park in Shibuya, Tokyo.

 

The site is located on a sloped area adjacent to streets on three sides. The neighborhood is mostly commercial with few residential apartment buildings. K park was highly enclosed with the huge trees filling up the space in deep green and shadows. It was also raised a bit from the sloped street to create a flat floor inside the park, which made it even harder to approach. The competition required a new landscape design and a park facility including a cafe or a store that visitors can use.

 

We wanted to create a bright park open to its surroundings by removing the raised platform and connecting it naturally to the existing slope of the site. In order to prevent blocking the visual and physical openness of the park, we suggested a thin panel running at the edge of the park, creating a ring around the sloped park in the center. The connected panel offers various places at different position utilizing the difference of elevation of the site: it turns into bench, table, bar, canopy and roof to the cafe.

 

Not only does the green plaza in the middle display seasonal gardens with varied plants, it also provides a communal event venue for a festival/marche, or even a place to gather for the local residents in case of emergency like natural disaster.

 

Our design suggestion, by proposing a furniture-like structure close to human scale, aimed to create a friendly and flexible park where visitors can drop by casually to find their own place to spend time as they want to.