Lighting Design of KITANAKA BRICK

Opened in 2020, the Kitanaka Brick & White is a commercial facility directly connected to Bashamichi Station on the Minatomirai Line. The area of the facility called Kitanaka Brick incorporates two old buildings, the Former Yokohama Raw Silk Inspection Station Office and Former Yokohama Raw Silk Inspection Station Warehouse, which have been preserved and restored as historic cultural monuments.

We were involved in the space design of the common areas. As the majority of visitors to Kitanaka Brick South were expected to arrive from Kitanaka Brick North, which is closer to the station entrance, there was a need to seamlessly extend the atmosphere of the latter to the former. To accomplish this most efficiently, it was decided that we should design the lighting for the first story of Kitanaka Brick North and for the connecting structure between it and Kitanaka Brick South. We began exploring designs based on the concept of a hinge, drawing inspiration from the relationship between the two buildings.

To create a vibrant feel suitable for a commercial facility while also respecting the historical building spaces, we used finely perforated brass-colored metal to make lighting fixtures composed as simple rectangular frames that reference the capitals of the existing mushroom columns. When switched on, hard lines of light appear right below their homogeneous perforated metal shells, while a soft light filters out through their sides. We aimed to create lighting fixtures that are simply composed but which highlight the material’s characteristics when lit. Seeing them reflected in the windows of the connecting building at dusk brings to mind a column grid. One could thus describe these lighting fixtures as afterimages of the mushroom columns.