We have stunning photos of Asphalt Spot, a Japanese rural landscape project designed by French architects R&Sie.
The following text is excerpted from the book Twenty-First Century Design by dezeen editor Marcus Fairs:
This small project in the farmlands of rural Japan is a strange mix of landscape art and infrastructure. Consisting of a square parking lot for 20 cars, this structure looks as if it has been through an earthquake, with its corners lifted into the air, ripples and folds on its surface, and a large gash in the black asphalt surface.
Asphalt Spot was completed in 2003 as part of the 2003 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, a cultural festival that attracted 157 artists and architects from 23 countries to create 224 works of art in the Shinano Basin in Niigata Prefecture.
Despite being one of Japan's main rice-producing regions, the area has suffered a severe population decline in recent years and the triennial is intended to attract tourists to the region.
Designed by Parisian architects R&Sie, Asphalt Spot was commissioned by the Art Front Gallery in the nearby town of Tokamashi as an exhibition space with integrated visitor facilities and parking. But the architects saw the project as an art installation in its own right, designing a structure that mimics the rugged terrain and blends seamlessly with the surrounding landscape.
The building has a steep slope between the road and the low-lying areas, creating a new topography that connects the two levels. The undulating surface is even crossed diagonally by hedges, similar to those used to divide fields.
Under one corner of the parking lot is a 300 square meter open exhibition hall used for art exhibitions. The lobby is filled with sloping concrete columns supporting the parking lot above, and the columns are covered with canvas cladding, as is the lower part of the ceiling.
R&Sie's buildings often seem to emerge from the terrain, made up of forms found near drifting, mutating and cloning elements.
Led by François Roche and Stéphanie Lavaux, R&Sie firmly occupies the conceptual, experimental wing of the contemporary architecture world. The name of the office is a pun on the word "heresy".
The text is excerpted from Design for the Twenty-First Century by Marcus Fairs, published by Carlton Books in October 2006.
