Queens Square

 

Japan

Collaborating with Tadao Kamei of Nikken Sekkei, MPFP introduced cohesiveness to an originally fragmented landscape centered on a Japanese shopping center and office complex.

The largest area, a two-level plaza and garden, allowed MPFP to think about the design in terms of verticality. To this end, they established a system of treillage, derived from traditional Japanese architecture. Banks of steel are alternated with Ilex to create a sharp white-and-green striping, similar to the banding found on the houses of noblemen in traditional Japanese architecture.

By intentionally parsing the landscape into discrete elements, MPFP resisted the temptation to fight the existing architecture in order to make a single space read as a whole. Instead the plaza and its various entrances and exits all read individually as part of a larger idea that, like music, comes into being and then fades away.