BUILDING TEXTS CONTEXT III_CHIEH CHIH CHIANG_60804699

Assignment 3
I. Project
The project is a mixed-use mid-rise building located in Sapporo, Japan. It attempts to create
a site of dwelling in a non-place by leveraging the unique geological-climate conditions of city and
site - specifically, the thermal springs below (hot) and the winter air above (cold) - to create a civic
core that transcends the volatile, homogeneous spaces of the modern, industrial hotel.
Formally, the building is organized in two concentric rings: an outer ring of all hotel
programs, from rooms to offices, and an inner ring of public spaces: gallery, theater, and garden,
spaces that bestow upon the building a grand civic gesture. In terms of thermal performances, the
outer ring is one of control: Conditioned centrally by automated systems, these spaces are largely
tuned to the global standard expected by guests of such establishments. The inner ring, due to
programmatic necessities, is even more controlled. Puncturing these two rings are bodies of water:
The three swimming pools mandated by the brief, and a sequence of thermal baths, public and
guest-only, that wing their way through the civic and hotel rings, letting air into the bowels of the
building.
Structure, thermodynamics, and circulation are manifested in the form of columns that carry
hot water from deep below the site to the baths within the hotel. Supporting the pools above, these
columns populate the open public plaza before dissolving into walls that rise into and define the
civic ring, folding into galleries and thermal baths, while curating vertical and horizontal
circulation.
The project appears fairly homogeneous, and indeed anonymous from the outside. A deep
building, the tame facade is a foil to the complexities within. While it differs from its milieu of flat
facades animated by advertising and media screens - a staple of Japanese cities - the anonymity is
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BUILDING TEXTS CONTEXT III_CHIEH CHIH CHIANG_60804699

not a direct reaction towards the curious blend of flat hyperactivity and inner tranquility that very
much encapsulates Japanese aesthetics, but rather a deliberate homage to the modern, industrial
hotel and the homogeneous, standardized climates and spaces it offers to the traveler.
What is vernacular is the copious appearance of the thermal baths as spatial and climatic
devices. Japanese onsens occupy a central role in social life - the act of public bathing as much
congregation and interaction as it is hygienic in nature. This civic quality is the reason why the
baths occupy a central position in the project.
II. Thesis
A good number of readings pertain to this project. Simmels meditation on the alienation of
the modern metropolis, Jamesons discussion of the impenetrable facade of the Westin Bonaventure,
Spivaks treatise on the global detritus of the subaltern, Heideggers theory of spaces in which one
dwells, and Martins reading of the city in the impassive flatness of the industrial curtain wall. The
uniqueness of the hotel program - a site of great volatility, a void of a non-place nestled in the heart
of the city - coupled with the idiosyncrasies of Japanese aesthetic tradition and culture, both of
which inform the project - renders seemingly unrelated texts such as Heidegger and Spivak relevant,
for instance in the concept of the global tourism detritus finding temporary yet rooted dwelling
within the spaces of the hotel. But of these passages, the Heidegger and Jameson articles are
perhaps the most relevant: the latter in in its subject matter - the Portman hotel itself - and the
broader cultural context within which the building is located and dissected, and the former for its
direct relation to the place of the architectural object within the city. Jamesons predilection for
intimating postmodernist critiques somewhat undermines the texts effectiveness in addressing this
projects conception of building and city, as the creation of a hyper-real alternative to Sapporo,
where elements of vertical circulation accelerates one through an artificial urban experience, is not

BUILDING TEXTS CONTEXT III_CHIEH CHIH CHIANG_60804699

on the agenda, even if programmatic and spatial complexities ultimately result in an internal
environment comparable to the city. The Heidegger analysis of locations versus space, building
versus dwelling, being and event, and other dichotomic pairs, offers a framework within which the
project can be situated in its totality.
If one is to select a quote from the text, it would be the following:
Human being consists in dwelling and, indeed, dwelling in the sense of the stay of mortals
on the earth.
But on the earth already means under the sky. Both of these also mean remaining before
the divinities and include a belonging to men's being with one another. By a primal
oneness the fourearth and sky, divinities and mortalsbelong together in one.
The fourfold in the case of this project may be interpreted as the confluence of the unique
physical (geological, climatic, topographical) and cultural (the latter a function of the former) of a
place. The city of Sapporo of course is no mere place, as it is the site of being for much of its
denizens and collective memories. But in the context of the city as location of the project, it is a
comparatively neutral ground with which the project faces off against. Thus, the projects
ideological position - that of a non-place hotel that creates a site of dwelling by elucidating latent
structures underlying the city - assumes a critical stance: It adopts a specific conception of the
context - physical, cultural, climatic - while maintaining autonomy in its formal composition as a
distinct object in the city, one that does seek to blend into the urban milieu at the expense of its own
identity. Its organization, in the design process and in its final form, is schematic rather than
diagrammatic.
The projects schema can be seen in its deep plan of a building within a building. While the
hotel ring is unequivocally not a site of dwelling - transience being the keyword, the interior
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BUILDING TEXTS CONTEXT III_CHIEH CHIH CHIANG_60804699

sequence of galleries, theater, gardens, and baths unfold to the city. Dwelling opens up, and the
transient traveler and the local denizen occupy the same space, acquiring the same knowledge, and
to some extent, an understanding of the immediate world - the city in its physical and cultural
totality. Thus, the city appropriates the inner building and adopts it as a home of sorts: Living is
no longer a private, domestic operation but a collective one. Privacy is nestled within the most
public of public spaces: the hotel.
And what is the privacy for? Shelter is not the only answer - a roof would suffice and four
walls would be excessive. Yet man has added not one, nor two, not even three, but four walls to
enclose his surroundings, affording himself and his ilk privacy from the world outside. The very
notion of a personal space suggests that such activities within cannot be performed outside, in the
realm of the public eye. Whether by dint of custom or their own nature, these activities require
seclusion if not hiding. The act of dwelling is intrinsically tied to the act of making life: We as a
species exist to perpetuate more of our kind. But the act has, since the original sin, been shunned
from the public realm, the outside, the world beyond the home, and resigned to the innermost
spaces of ones abode, the centerpiece of dwelling-space. And this - the making of life in a city in a
nation that is suffering from a drastic shortage of births - lies in the core of the building.
III. Apologia
An architectural object, by dint of its sheer size alone, inflicts externalities upon the city.
The physical ramifications of its presence is well-documented, in the form of shadows cast and
circulation disrupted. Add to this potency the programmatic juxtapositions of civic spaces such as a
gallery, theater, and garden, and the project acquires even more agency in its situation within the
city.
As foolhardy as it is to predict the long term, or even short term, ramifications, the project

BUILDING TEXTS CONTEXT III_CHIEH CHIH CHIANG_60804699

was conceived with the intent to effect such changes. Sapporo is a city in slow decline, as its
suburbs hollow out with a shrinking and ageing population, and its economy stuck in neutral mode
for much of the past decade. Lukewarm attempts at industrial reinvention aside, it still relies on
tourism as its primary economic driver - one that has experienced limited growth in recent years. It
is therefore no exaggeration to conclude that Sapporo (and indeed, the whole country) is in dire
need of urban revitalization, not to stave off decay but to inject new life, quite literally, into the city.
The creation of generous civic spaces of the scale that the project introduces has limited
impact on the socio-economic constitution of the city. At best, one could expect an architectural
spectacle to draw tourists. But the project is not a spectacle in any sense of the word - there is no
outlandish form, no stylistic flourish, to attract visitors from afar. Rather, it is the intimate warren of
spaces within that hopefully encourages the type of intimacy that could give the declining
population replacement ratio a welcome boost. This provision of very private spaces in a very
public space is perhaps the projects most impactful contribution to the city - Dwelling is realized
not just in a current state of being, but also in future generations.
As a final note, it is worth noting that the city of Sapporo itself is a new invention, a young
city replete with iconography appropriated from other cultural contexts. Indeed it is a city designed
to fulfill popular expectations, from its branding as the worlds most wintry city to its popularity
among domestic tourists as the most Western of Japanese cities. While the citizens of Sapporo no
doubt dwell in its spaces with consistency and totality, the quasi-fantastical narrative that tourists
engage with fleetingly is a different animal altogether. The projects interface with this fabricated
milieu, a stoic universal exterior concealing an interior in flux, is thus a negotiation between
permanence and transience. Dwelling, a permanent condition, occupies the ever-changing inside,
while the volatile spaces of the hotel with their high turnover rate - peak tourist seasons see the
citys population almost double - are encased in an unchanging skin.
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