Monaco . Kengo Kuma Laboratory Project

Recently, I was privileged to have Monaco project in which I was team member of exhibited at Design Life Bangkok - an RMIT graduate Alumni exhibition. I have been meaning to get my work together for while but I seem to quite easily find others things to occupy my time on - like the next project. Nevertheless, here is the text and images that was displayed at the exhibition.

Project

This is a proposal for 12 boutique apartments, penthouse and mixed use commercial in the illustrious Monte Carlo, Monaco. The 1000m2 site sits directly adjacent to the Monte Carlo Casino Gardens providing sweeping south facing views of the Monte Carlo Casino and Mediterranean Sea. The extruded volume is carefully twisted, tapered and pulled, directing the buildings energy towards this main view. Juxtaposed against the context of heritage Beaux Arts, Mediterranean influenced and late 20^th century in situ concrete buildings, timber louvers and triangulated glass panels are used to carefully articulate the volumes movement and operate with varied planes of transparency based on privacy needs and admission of light. Each apartment has equal north views onto Boulevard des Moulins and South facing views towards the park and ocean. A reinterpreted fishbone plan was adopted to achieve this which therefore created dynamic internal and external spaces. The plan is separated into night and day zones with the focus on the living, dining and main terrace to be spatially generous and awash with ambient light. Linked by a passageway and restaurant terrace, the ground level lobby, mezzanine office space and first level retail areas are accessed on both Boulevard des Moulins and Avenue de la Madone. 

Practice

Kengo Kuma and Associates, in association with the Kuma Laboratory at the University of Tokyo is a large scale practice involving more than 150 personnel. Kuma founded his Tokyo based practice in 1990 before establishing his Paris branch in 2008. With over 60 projects on the go around the world, Kuma rarely takes a day off in his quest of sensitive architectural perfection “for architects, perfection is necessary” (CNN). Through his early experiences with Japanese craftsman in the countryside, Kuma applies traditional materials and sentiment to contemporary design problems – often resulting in delicate, textural and multilayered works that harmoniously respond to the atmosphere of its place. 

Professor Kengo Kuma and Associate Professors Ko Nakamura and Mikako Koike headed up the Monaco project team which consisted of Bojan Koncarevic, Tomoyo Sakane, Nikola Nikolovski, Chen Yao and myself as an intern. Over a two month period we all worked through an intense design process involving many digital and analogue processes. I was personally responsible for the fundamental apartment planning and later devised the twisting concept for the form.