Nuts­hell

The Ariake Gymnastics Centre is desi­gned to func­tion in two phases; initi­ally as a Olympic sports faci­lity, it will be converted into a perma­nent exhi­bi­tion hall.

The Ariake Gymnastics Centre is desi­gned to func­tion in two phases; initi­ally as a tempo­rary inter­na­tional sports compe­ti­tion faci­lity, then, after taking out the tempo­rary spec­tator stands, it will be converted into a perma­nent exhi­bi­tion hall.

A unique feature of this faci­lity is its exten­sive and gene­rous use of timber throug­hout the buil­ding. This is a posi­tive realiza­tion of “wooded faci­li­ties” and “sustaina­bi­lity” announced in the Tokyo 2020 candi­dacy file. The mate­rial was also selected to express the memory of this district which was once a timber storage pond.

Based on the archi­tec­tural concept of “a wooden vessel floa­ting in the bay area,” timber is used wherever possible, speci­fi­cally in the roof frame struc­ture, facade, spec­tator seats, exte­rior walls, etc. while carefully conside­ring the charac­te­ristics of wood in each appli­ca­tion.

Func­tion, struc­ture, and space are tightly combined to achieve beauty and rich­ness in simpli­city, which is the essence of Japa­nese tradi­tional wood archi­tec­ture.

The arena ceiling is a wood frame struc­ture desi­gned to reduce the weight of the overall struc­ture. The concourse space, where spec­ta­tors approach the arena, is inten­tio­nally placed outdoors. The wood facade takes into account acou­stic and thermal insu­la­tion proper­ties.

Func­tion, struc­ture, and space are tightly combined to achieve beauty and rich­ness in simpli­city, which is the essence of Japa­nese tradi­tional wood archi­tec­ture that we hope spec­ta­tors and athletes from all over the world will expe­ri­ence.  

The site is located in the midst of a vast, wide-open land­scape along a canal. Yet the design also needed to take into account the resi­den­tial envi­ron­ment of the medium-rise and high-rise condo­mi­nium buil­dings in the vici­nity. The hori­zon­tally long and flowing lines were achieved by keeping the buil­ding height as low as possible, redu­cing the overall volume and control­ling the height of the eaves.

Ligh­tening the weight of the struc­ture by using wood for the roof is effec­tive for buil­dings cons­tructed on sites with poor soil condi­tions.

By posi­tio­ning the circu­la­tion concourse on the outside of the buil­ding and crea­ting an open and broad approach space, the design attempts to avoid the impene­trable exte­rior typi­cally found on large-scale sports faci­li­ties created by the mono­li­thic walls.

Ligh­tening the weight of the struc­ture by using wood for the roof is effec­tive for buil­dings cons­tructed on sites with poor soil condi­tions. In this project, we adopted a simple struc­ture that uses single members of large glued lami­nated timber with high heat capa­city, rather than trusses consis­ting of a number of small members, to achieve both fire resis­tance perfor­mance and struc­tural stabi­lity.

Japan’s first complex struc­tural system using Timber Beam Strings Struc­ture and Canti­lever Trusses created a large wood-frame space that dyna­mi­cally covers the arena.