Kumagusu Minakata (1867-1941) is a Japanese scientist/folklorist from Wakayama prefecture with worldwide recognition. His activity spread to Great Britain among other countries. A pioneer of environmental preservation activities, his works also became the foundation for conserving the “Kumano Kodo”, now a registered World Heritage.
Tanabe City in Wakayama prefecture envisioned a museum for the preservation, study and exhibition of his works. A design competition was held in 2003 in which our proposal won first prize.
The site sits in the oldest neighborhood in the center of Tanabe City, and is adjacent to the former Minakata residence where he spent the latter half of his life.
Our proposal;
1) Form a relationship between the museum and the former Minakata residence together with the surrounding cityscape.
2) To embody the forms and atmosphere of the Kumano mountains; the source of Minakata’s thoughts and ideas as well as the stage of his activities.
3) Make use of the local “Kishu” brand of wood to promote the local forestry industry.
The roof was designed as four consecutive gables in various heights, finished with sumi colored zinc alloy sheet, stepping down toward the street so that the museum would effectively merge with the scale and context of the surrounding cityscape and the former Minakata residence.
Inside the museum “static spaces”; open-access library and curatorial rooms, and “dynamic spaces”; exhibition and seminar rooms, are arranged in a continuous and sterical order, creating a comprehensible circulation and also enabling the visitors to perceive the former residence from any point in the museum.
The main structural element is the “Nuki Lattice Wall”, adopting the “Nuki” construction method, a disappearing traditional Japanese construction method, where a few “Nuki” members are imbedded into the plaster walls to down size the over scaled continental post and beam sizes to match the Japanese scale.
The unique “Nuki Lattice Wall”, contrived in this project, is a shear wall using the compressive resistive force of the “Nuki”.
The structural members are revealed in a lattice composed of stud columns and horizontal “Nuki” members and become an important aesthetic design element throughout the architecture.
The frame stiffness is maintained by wood wedges inserted into gaps occurring at the intersections of the stud columns and the “Nuki”.
It becomes an efficient shear wall with a strain force twice that of a structural wall composed of laminated wood and a story drift of less than 1/15.
Where as conventional shear walls tend to be an enclosing factor in space, the “Nuki Lattice Walls” simultaneously achieves structural stability and visual continuity.
As a result the interior spaces are filled with light filtering through the lattice like light filtering through foliage, and together with the bristling round posts, are both an analogy of the atmosphere of the Kumano woods.