Exterior Stairs and Hallways Open towards the City
The Hotel Siro staircases of galvanized steel cantilever out from the northern end of its rectangular footprint, turning in spirals or rising in straight flights to suspended landings above the street, until it reaches a small, fenced roof garden terrace high above Ikekuburo, a commercial neighborhood of Tokyo. Every flight of stairs has a different design, just like stairs in hilly cities like Nagasaki and Onomichi. The open-air circulation of the 962m² hotel suspends the visitor into the cityscape every time they enter or leave.
On each of the nine levels of accommodation, the hotel’s design also brings Tokyo’s layered streets directly into the building. The stairways lead to a loggia-like open-air hallway where breezes can blow through. Every room is directly accessed from this Tokyo alleyway-like hall, like a Japanese roji, the dewy ground of a garden that is crossed to reach a tea ceremony. The room access from the hallway echoes an engawa, the exterior floor along a side of a Japanese house, and the entryway space makes the inside and outside one, like a traditional Japanese doma. These are both reminiscent of a ryokan traditional inn, making them novel and contemporary yet Japanese. By opening the traditional translucent shoji screens and sliding doors, the cityscape is revealed.
The hotel’s open circulation spaces are the heart of its design concept. In contrast to a design incorporating normal elevators and corridors sealed to the outside, like branded hotels, founder of Mount Fuji Architects Studio Masahiro Harada, says: “What we wanted to create here was a hotel where guests would experience the uniqueness of the city”.
Project: hotel Siro / Location: Ikebukuro 2-12-12 Toshima-ku Tokyo / Architect: Mount fuji architects studio / Project team: Masahiro Harada, Mao Harada, Takashi Takei / Structural engineer: Yuko Mihara (Graph Studio) / MEP: Tetens / Graphic+Communication Design: KIGI / Use: Hotel / Site area: 170.78m² / Bldg. area: 107.18m² / Total floor area: 962.47m² / Bldg. scale: 10 stories / Structure: Steel / Design: 2017.05~2018.03 / Construction: 2018.10~2020.04 / Photograph: Ryota Atarashi
