SPACE December2025 (No. 697)
Interview Takahashi Ippei principal, TAKAHASHI IPPEI OFFICE × Lee Sowoon
Lee Sowoon (Lee): The Kasumigaura Lake Community Place (2024) is a public project which took on the renovation of an old museum facility. What were your first impressions of this site, and what direction did you propose to take as an architect?
Takahashi Ippei (Takahashi): The Namegata city asked for submissions of the reconstruction for the abandoned existing buildings, which were in use by the public science museum. The facility had been proven itself to be ineffective, with its uninspiring exhibitions. I talked to a friend of mine (now a chief PFI operator) who ran a guest ranch located near here. We made a proposal to them: the idea was to bring animals onto this site and to let them run free. It meant that it would change into a place where people just gather and communicate with each other. The former facility was specified for the use of a science museum, but it might force how to enjoy here on us with old-fashioned exhibitions such as machines and panels. So I attempted to turn the humans loose too here together.
Lee: You have interpreted architectural history as ‘architecture from the inside’.▼1 What problems do you think architecture faces today? And how does your approach in this project differ from those of the past?
Takahashi: Modernity has distanced us from nature through the rational approaches found in Western philosophy. But it has been running at its limits. Its endpoint would logically be that humans stop thinking, end up with a mechanical mind, and we have less of a sense of purpose in life. I tried to bring the two – human and the non-human – as close together as possible in this place so that we are awakened and inspired to develop sensory apprehension. The strategy that I have been advocating for is ‘creating architecture from the outside in’. If the architectural approach merely addresses problems and is from an insider’s perspective, the building becomes a problemsolving machine. Architecture should be viewed as creating a stable place that fosters an atmosphere where problems are mitigated, concerns minimised, and through which new ideas can emerge. If the former is akin to Western medicine, the latter, practiced here, resembles Eastern medicine. Th... *You can see more information on the SPACE No. December (2025).
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Architect
TAKAHASHI IPPEI OFFICE (Takahashi Ippei)
Design team
Izumi Fuko, Ueda Masato
Location
Ibaraki, Japan
Programme
community centre, museum, zoo
Site area
21,756.86㎡
Building area
4,025.27㎡
Gross floor area
4,968.29㎡
Height
12.9m
Building to land ratio
18.5%
Floor area ratio
22.8%
Structure
concrete, steel
Exterior finishing
exposed concrete, paint
Interior finishing
exposed concrete, ceramic tile, paint, etc.
Structural engineer
Yasutaka Konishi (Konishi Structural Engineers)
Mechanical engineer
Hiroshi Takayama (Kankyo Engineering)
Electrical engineer
Takanori Hirai (Kankyo Engineering)
Construction
Okabe
Design period
Apr. 2020 – May 2022
Construction period
June 2022 – July 2024
Client
Namegata City
Takahashi Ippei
Takahashi Ippei was born in Tokyo in 1977. He received his bachelor’s degree from Tohoku University in 2000 and completed his master’s program at Yokohama National University in 2002. From 2002 to 2009, he worked at the Office of Ryue Nishizawa, where he contributed to a number of projects before establishing TAKAHASHI IPPEI OFFICE in 2010. His work has been widely recognized, earning the AIJ Young Architect Award in 2016 for Casa O (2014), the Yoshioka Award in 2019 for Apartment House in Tokyo (2018), and the JIA Emerging Architect Award in 2020 for Kawatani House (2019). Notable projects include Shichigahama Tohyama Nursery School (2013), the Tokyo University of the Arts Sculpture Building Extension (2023), and 7 (2024).
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