Baraike Park base facility | Tomohiro Hata Architect & Associates

This is a plan for a barbecue field as a park base facility developed by the Park-PFI project. At the time of the proposal, the administration expected that the field would be located in the center of the gymnasium, baseball field and other facilities in the park, and that it would be the focal point of the bustling activity in the park.

The site was to be in the center of a square, sandwiched between large sports facilities such as a baseball field and a gymnasium, with no shade as far as the eye could see. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to create a place where visitors could rest, stand and hide for a while in their own way, and we wanted to create an open, shady area by the adjacent pond.

We therefore drew an image of a grove of trees forming a gentle ring, so that the actual trees and the architecture could blend together and create a sense of unity, with many people maintaining a comfortable distance from each other, but at the same time surrounding a large open space.

As the park is surrounded by low-rise residential areas, the roofs were subdivided to a residential scale and blended into the grove.

The subdivided roof structure is a network of sloping columns without walls, aiming to create the perception of blending into the trees and entering the grove, while bearing the horizontal forces as a whole. It is hoped that the park will become the focal point of the park as well as a place of relaxation in a dense residential area, involving the existing tents and administration building.

The proposal that started this project was made in the Corona Disaster in October 2020, and we and other participants - within the team - discussed the importance and potential of the park in the city center as the plan was developed. The function requested by the administration was a barbecue field, but beyond that, we sought to find ways to expand the role that the city park of the future could play, such as yoga and stretching accounts, a base for healthy food education activities, and various community gatherings in connection with the sports that take place in the park.

Credits
Architecture Firm: Tomohiro Hata Architect & Associates

Lead Architects: Tomohiro Hata, Yoshihiko Kawakami

Photography: Toshiyuki Yano, http://www.yanofoto.com/