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Meiso no Mori Crematorium Gifu, Japan Toyo Ito & Associates

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Meiso no Mori Crematorium Gifu, Japan Toyo Ito & Associates

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This sublime building, a crematorium, is like a drifting white cloud come to rest gently on a small forest of gracefully tapered pedestals.

With a line of wooded hills at its back and anks, its form reected in the still water of an articial lake, it stands as a calm and contemplative place in which to observe the rituals of cremation and honour the dead. Designed by Toyo Ito in collaboration with structural engineer Mutsuro Sasaki, this work continues Itos explorations into spatial ambiguity, from his Serpentine Pavilion of 2002 in London, in which he dispensed with conventional categories of structures and inll, to the I-Project, a botanical garden in Fukuoka, Japan, where he fused landscape and interior spaces with a seamless, owing series of reinforced concrete shells. But with this building, the Meiso no Mori Crematorium (it means Forest of Meditation), he has taken the game one notch up. For here, in a park-like cemetery setting at Kakamigahara, in the Gifu prefecture of central Japan, the master architect has sought to dematerialize all sense of formal structure by oating over the landscape a vast undulating shell in which to shelter the ceremonial functions of the crematorium. And though the roof appears free in form it was realized through rigorous structural analysis. The building replaces a former crematorium inside the cemetery. The idea began with a series of simple sketches of a owing reinforced concrete shell which combined a billowing structure and columns struck as a single, uniform surface. It was conceived, Ito says, not as a conventional massive crematorium but as architecture of a spacious roof oating above the site like slowly drifting clouds, creating a soft eld. Structural engineer Mutsuro Sasaki worked out how to build it. Sasaki, who also engineered Itos Sendai Mediatheque, uses a computational method of evolving and testing shape design so that you arrive at the most cost efcient structural solution. The method uses an algorithm which, Sasaki says, involves generating rational structural shapes within a computer by using principles of evolution and self-organisation of living structures from an engineering standpoint. Ito likens this structural analysis to the growth pattern of plants in which, as in nature, a process of great complexity, comprising several hundred evolutionary cycles, produces the nal result. What all that means in laymans terms is that the architect comes up with the shape, Sasaki number crunches it, tests it through computer modeling and comes up with a better, more beautiful, more elegant, more economic form, and tells the architect how to make it. The most economic material, in this instance, was reinforced concrete. The challenge was how to make the various curved formwork sections and tapered column shapes with absolute precision. To achieve that Sasakis digitised data and computer models were sent off to a formwork specialist who produced each section. We designed with consideration for the relationship with the surrounding landscape, Ito says. We determined the degree of various bumps on the roof according to the ceiling height required in each interior space of the building. Then we made an initial digital model with which we did a series of structural analysis tests to nd the form that achieves the best structural solution.

The form of the roof was determined precisely, using 3,700 check points on a grid. It was constructed by continually cross checking the position of all points, one by one, with laser level nders, to ensure a consistent depth of 200mm for the concrete, with a tolerance of only 10mm. The process was crucial for both the design and the structure. The roof was completed in ve separate pours, using a quick-setting mixture to eliminate the possibility of the concrete sliding off the curving sections. Once hardened, all joint marks were removed with grinding machines and the entire surface trowelled with mortar to create a single surface. A exible water proong urethane layer was added later to compensate for any slight movement in the concrete surface. The result is an architecture of remarkable lightness, of uplifting uidity. It is timeless and contemplative all at the same time. But the starring role belongs to the roof, all 2,270 square metres of it, which oats overhead in peaks and troughs, as a single sheet of billowing almost impossibly thin reinforced white concrete. The roofs form is a ne balance of functional, servicing, structural and aesthetic requirements. Freely dispersed columns as slender and graceful as those of Eero Saarinens legendary tulip table and chairs - drop seamlessly from the undulating ceiling which rises as high as 11.5 metres in parts. The columns conceal storm water drains and appear to have been cast as one with the roof. The roof canopy extends to protect a screen of 19mm glass encasing the entire building. The interior plan is organized around a regular arrangement of rectilinear functional and ceremonial rooms placed between the columns as windowless, top-lit boxes of travertine stone. Beyond the entrance, visitors access two areas where mourners pay their last respects. A corridor leads to waiting rooms and a hall before entering the cremation zone. Detailing is subtle and theres a clean formal relationship between all parts of the building. JR
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Meiso no Mori Crematorium Gifu, Japan Toyo Ito & Associates

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Floor plan 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 waiting room storage sub-entrance dry area telephone area kitchenette toilet pump room rest room control room furnace room machine room sub-entrance hall hall charnel ante-room administrative valedictory room inurnment room entrance hall windbreak room lobby

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Several hundred evolutionary cycles produced the nal shape. The curved line becomes landscape, in line with the edge silhouette of the surrounding mountains. We imagined a soft place, as if a gentle snow fall had settled lightly upon the site.

Toyo Ito

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The starring role belongs to the roof, all 2,270 square metres of it, which hovers overhead in peaks and troughs, as a single sheet of billowing almost impossibly thin reinforced white concrete.
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Project Statement Meiso no Mori was planned to reconstruct a decrepit crematorium as part of a cemetery in a park. This cemetery is located in a serene site, nestled in mountains with various trees and plants in the south and facing a pond in the north. The design brief called for a sublime space, appropriate to give last honours to the deceased, while subtly integrating the surrounding landscape of the park cemetery. Our idea was to respond not with a conventional massive crematorium but with architecture of a spacious roof oating above the site like slowly drifting clouds creating a soft eld. We investigated a freely curved reinforced concrete shell to construct a roof characterized by concavities and convexities. The shape of the roof was determined by an algorithm generating the optimum structural solution. Since this type of structural analysis resembles the growth of patterns of plants which keep transforming following simple natural rules, we call the process evolution. Several hundred such evolutionary cycles produced the nal shape. The curved line becomes landscape, in line with the edge silhouette of the surrounding mountains. Four structural cores and twelve cone columns with built-in rainwater collection pipes are positioned evenly under the roof structure. Ceremonial spaces are placed between the cores and columns. The smooth roof line also articulates the ceiling of the interior. Indirect light softly illuminates the curved ceiling and spreads in all directions with expressive nuances of light. Toyo Ito and Associates

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Ito has sought to dematerialize all sense of formal structure by oating a vast undulating shell over the landscapeit stands as a calm, contemplative place in which to observe the rituals of cremation and honour the dead.

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East-west section 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 dry area control room furnace equipment room furnace room hall valedictory room entrance hall wind break room pavement drive way

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Project Meiso no Mori Crematorium Location Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture, Japan Architect Toyo Ito and Associates Project team Toyo Ito, Takeo Higashi, Leo Yokata, Zai Shirakawa, Takayasu Hirayama Structural engineer Sasaki Structural Consultants Mechanical Engineers Kankyo Engineering Inc Landscape Design Professor Mikiko Ishikawa Builder Toda, Ichikawa & Tentyu in joint venture Photographer Shinkenchiku-sha