The Home-for-All initiative was set up within months of the 311 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami to build small community centres around temporary housing erected to re-home the 250,000 homes that were destroyed.
To date, several of these buildings have been built thanks to generous donations from Japan and all around the world.
Conceived as a large straw hat held aloft by trees, this building is an indoor play space for children. These spaces are important due to the ongoing concerns about background radiation levels.
As the children cannot play outside, the building resembles trees in a park. The cross laminated timber columns help reduce the span of the timber roof making it lighter. The roof is made up of nine layers of timber slats. Each slat is continuous, the longest being 20m in length. The slats are laid over a formwork one layer at a time, with each successive layer rotated through 120 degrees.
Designed by Klein Dytham architecture, the Soma City building was handed over to the local community on the 14th February 2015 with much love.
Source: Architizer
