Kengo Kuma Reveals Details of 'Alberni by Kuma'

In Vancouver on April 12th for Small to Large (video of event at bottom), a lecture and panel discussion organized by Westbank and SALA (UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture), Kengo Kuma discussed, among other projects, his design for Alberni by Kuma. Unveiled in September 2015, it is one of four projects Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA) is working on with Westbank. For Kuma, "The building should not be an isolated object. Buildings should be part of the city, part of the environment. I believe that is the goal of architecture in the 21st century."

Paralleling the theme of Kuma's Small to Large talk, Alberni by Kuma consists of small and large gestures: the latter is clearly evident in the two curves that carve into the otherwise rectangular tower, while the former permeates the design, from the moss garden at the base to the panels on the facade, the timber of the woodwork, and the planks in the corridors. Anodized aluminum and glass cover the orthogonal surfaces of the tower, while wood is introduced in the concave cuts, where terraces for the 181 residential units are located.

To quote Kuma, "In Japanese space, boundaries are considered mutable and transient. This is always an important part of my work. In this project, the minimal glazing details and the layered landscaping blurs conventional boundaries to enhance the sense of continuity. The design celebrates the presence of nature in Vancouver." He describes Alberni by Kuma as "a dream for any foreign architect. We have done towers, but not to this scale and level of detail."