Atelier Bow-Wow’s Pet Architecture Guidebook and Made in Tokyo

Atelier Bow Wow envisioned the city of Tokyo as a series of peculiar buildings and documented their findings in axonometric form the Pet Architecture Guidebook and Made in Tokyo. In the Pet Architecture Guidebook, Bow Wow focuses on buildings that are ‘construction[s] of customisation’ (AA School of Architecture 2015); akin to pets, these buildings are appreciated for their functionality and ‘micro’ (Stalder, L., Escher, C., Komura, M., Washida, M. 2013) size, in relation to surrounding buildings (as shown in Figure 1)

Figure 1: ‘Pet Architecture’ (AA School of Architecture 2015)

In Made in Tokyo, Bow-Wow explores hybrid buildings that possess multiple and disconnected functions in the same construction; for instance, the roof of a supermarket serves as a driving school (refer to Figure 2). These buildings, like ‘pet architecture’ (AA School of Architecture 2015), utilize space intimately close to or on top of other buildings.

Figure 2: Hybrid Architecture

Australia does not have a population density similar to Japan, thus, ‘pet architecture’ (AA School of Architecture 2015) is to be defined in a slightly different way in terms of measurements. For ‘pet architecture’ (AA School of Architecture 2015) I have chosen a small stationary shop in Chinatown, Haymarket that seems to have dug itself underneath a larger building (refer to top row of Figure 3). Market City was chosen to represent hybrid buildings (refer to bottom row in Figure 3) as its bottom level served as a mall and marketplace, whilst its roof featured a tennis court; I believe there is no relation between the two purposes. Using Illustrator, I have drawn the two building and added annotations, measurements and scale factor. The layout of my project is similar to what Bow-Wow uses.

Figure 3: My project on Morning Glory and Market City

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Reference List:

AA School of Architecture 2015, Atelier Bow Wow — At the AA, video recording, YouTube, viewed 12 April 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5T2WhJozsY&t=3004s>

Stalder, L., Escher, C., Komura, M., Washida, M. 2013, Atelier Bow-Wow: A Primer, 1st Edition, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, Germany

White, M. 2007, Atelier Bow-Wow: Tokyo Anatomy, Archinect, viewed 24 April 2017, < http://archinect.com/features/article/56468/atelier-bow-wow-tokyo-anatomy>