RHWhen do you have your best ideas?
IHThere’s no specific time. Whenever I come across an idea I write it down in a notebook immediately. I guess I work 24 hours nonstop! I also have a notebook at my bedside.
RHThe Niigata City Performing Arts Center has been one of your most ambitious projects. Here too, it was important to build up relationships with people who then use your architecture.
IHFirst of all we made our competition project transparent, open to everybody, and we had symposiums. We developed the design through communication with performers. During the construction period we discussed freely how to best manage new activities and organized hundreds of workshops with city officials and citizens. Thus we made architecture happen through collaboration with users, clients and professionals. The concept of this project is creation through crossover, when different fields join, like amateurs and professionals, tradition and (modern) architecture, music and theater. In fact, 50 percent of the programs are produced by the Performing Arts Center. This is possible, because it is financially in good shape. For energy efficiency we applied a new technology on the fa?ade. The reclaimed land was originally covered with asphalt, which we replaced with greeneries to work against the heat-island-phenomenon. A network of pedestrian bridges connect buildings and support the relationship between city and waterfront. I believe that this urban strategy provided public amenities effectively to the citizens. In my opinion, architecture is always incomplete people who live with it carry it on. It is only completed through the process of living in it and through appropriate renovation.
