Philosophy of Student Apartment:

These are the three main points that formed my design.
First, Human Ergonomics.
Second, Human Traffic.
Third, Experience with Light and Tactility— Essence of Japan.
I will explain how these points affected my design.

Ergonomics:

Every part in my design is based on the measurements we took for possible fundamental actions for humans. How high a working table should be, or how much space do we need to move comfortablly? I constrained myself to design a minimal space, because I thought that it’s not practical to design a huge room for a student. What I tried to accomplish was, however, to make a space of which minimum isn’t so noticeable, in other words, a space where an inhabitant won’t feel uncomfortable because of its size.

Human Traffic— Karesansui Garden:

(To make a space that is minimal but doesn’t make an inhabitant to feel that way)
How do I do that, or what kind of shape should I follow? I still didn’t know.
But, I also had another idea, and that is to include essence of Japan in the design. Most of the students at KIDI consider about studying abroad and a few years at this apartment could be the last chance to experience one’s culture.
I got inspiration from Karesansui– a particular style in Japanese Zen Garden. Karesansui Garden symbolically represents nature in a most dynamic and yet tranquil way that I know of. It represents a flow of water without using even a single drop of water but only stones.
I regarded each element that is needed for the apartment as a stone in a Karesansui Garden, so I decided to put them in a space and then make a traffic line around them. So, I piled all the elements in a straight row and made aisles on both sides, so that the inhabitant can walk around the room just as water flows along stones in a river.
It might have been easier to present openness by creating an empty space. Two aisles might be the most needless elements in the room. But what I tried to accomplish was to create openness that lies in closeness. This is a space with no opened living space, but I was hoping that the existence of the aisles would create the illusion of space.