Design Award of Merit
Saitama Plaza, Saitama, Japan
Peter Walker & Partners, Berkeley, CA
Ohtori Consultants Environmental Design Institute, Osaka, Japan
NTT Urban Developments Inc., Tokyo, Japan
Client: Saitama Prefecture Government
This project began as a response to an open competition that was
held in 1994 for the design of a plaza as the pedestrian core of
a newly planned sub-center of greater Tokyo. Built over an existing
rail yard, the center was intended to relieve the access congestion
to the older central districts of the city and would include a new
train station, an arena, the tallest building in Japan, and millions
of square feet of new office, residential, and retail space. The
plaza design metaphorically borrows a square of the forest surrounding
the nearby Hikawa Shrine and places this calm natural element in
a perfectly classical grid at the center of the new urban construction.
The plaza was conceived as a fifth "elevation" of an otherwise
totally glass building, each tree appearing to rise from a steel
pillar in the floor below.
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