Gallery

Description

Net Body / Skin
Clothes are made of two-dimensional fabric destined to wrap up three-dimensional bodies. In an initial stage, the notion of clothing was related with the idea of adjusting body temperature, later evolving to the idea of growing “a second skin”. Just like clothes, space also wraps up the body, adjusting its temperature. However, unlike clothes, space cannot move with the body.

Instead of defining space with elements such as floors, walls or ceilings, this concept was based on the idea of clothing space with a skin, able to cross over the functions of space partition and furniture, trying to express the idea of “Clothes like space” or “Space like clothes”. The new Romanticism boutique, a female fashion brand with close to 500 stores, is located in the neighborhood of Xihu Lake, close to the center of Hangzhou.

The organic net is extends across the entire space, being absorbed from the facade into inner rooms and then changing its shape smoothly till the first floor wrapping it up. Close on one side to the stairs, the net expands to the basement.The net changes its shape, becoming partitions, counter, chairs, furniture and even railing. Acting as a third skin, the net comprise has an organic similar structure, with “bone”, “flesh” and “skin”. “Bone” is ordinary reinforcing steel, “flesh” is comprised of insulation foam and glass fiber, finally the “skin” is composed of epoxy resin finished with oil paint.

Mirror-finished stainless surfaces were used in the ceiling of the first floor, creating a visual impact, with illumination overflowing from the low ceiling. Objects reflected on this surfaces appear to be in the water, simulating a reversion effect of a water surface above the visitors head.

Biography

Keiichiro Sako was born in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1970. He graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1994 and obtained a Masters Degree from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1996. From that year until 2004 he worked with Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop, established his personal studio, SAKO Architects, presiding in cooperation the Asian Architects Associates.
Between 2004 and 2005, Keiichiro Sako was Visiting Scholar at the Columbia University and overseas artist dispatched by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs