Opportunity Squared – Tokyo, Japan
When the owners of a rather small plot of land in Central Tokyo approached us to design an apartment complex the discussion on return on investment quickly led to the idea to forget about apartments and to start thinking about parking.
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A parking tower has the possibility to create on a relatively small plot of land a high return on investment (figure 1). The idea to make use of the almost fanatical desire to own a car and to take it to the centre of Tokyo (where it needs to be parked). The parking tower with a penthouse at the top is an opportunistic way of living in the centre of Tokyo while using other people’s money to pay for the mortgage.
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There are two different lift systems for free standing towers. In one system, The Tower System, the cars are in cages which circulate whenever a car is parked or is being called back. In another system, called the Lift System, the cars are individually transported on a pallet to their fixed parking spaces. The Tower parking system is more spectacular as the cars are rotating all at once, but as the Lift Parking makes less noise and vibration it seems more suitable for this project by to combine with a residence on top. The pallets where the cars are parked on have LED lighting attached to the front thus that at night the vertical movement and the changing of the cars will create a continuous changing pattern.
The idea is that the mystification of parking will make the tower more attractive, celebrating the fact that it is a Super-Materialistic Money Generating Machine, renting emptiness in chunks of 15 minutes.
At the top at about 17 meters the penthouse is located. The living, dinning corner and two bedrooms face south, looking out onto the Tokyo skyline. On the first floor of the penthouse are the living areas, a small kitchen, a music – study nook and a small roof terrace. The bedrooms and bathroom are on the second floor. On the roof there is space for a billboard which provides for additional funds.
Project Title: Opportunity squared
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Client: Private client
Principal Use: Mixed use, parking-living
Architect/Firm: Martin van der Linden – van der Architects
Design Period: 2009-2011
Construction Period: Building permit pending
Date of Completion: 2012
Site Area (square meters): 88m2
Floor Area (square meters): Residential: 74.4m2
Construction Company: Steel structure: Mitsubishi
M&E Engineer: Mitsubishi
Main Materials/Finishings/Fittings/Furnishing: Steel structure, Glass, Aluminium
