Children's forest

Design Team：Takashige Yamashita Office
Size：1008.69 ㎡   
Location：Gotemba-shi, Japan

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Feature：

Project - A winding path leads through a densely forested site to the Takane no Mori Nursery School, an ingeniously designed childcare facility by Takashige Yamashita + Young-A Kang. Nestled amongst the rolling terrain, the nursery comprises eight gently curving pavilions arranged in a circular plan that embraces the natural landscape. The architects carefully considered how to provide children of different ages with an environment that nurtures interaction while maintaining appropriate separation. Their solution allows all the pavilions to open onto a shared courtyard at the center, enabling visual connections, while each pavilion has its own discrete entrance from the encircling path. A sweeping, undulating roof ties the pavilions together into a cohesive whole, with its curved form conceived as an architectural echo of the site's undulating topography. Deep overhanging eaves create sheltered transitional zones, blurring the boundaries between inside and out. Throughout, the nursery establishes a poetic dialogue between built form and nature. Openings punctuate the roof to draw dappled forest light into the interiors, while sheltered corners embrace small trees, making the forest feel like an extension of the architecture itself.

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Design Team - Founded in 2015, Takashige Yamashita Office is a Tokyo-based practice led by principal Takashige Yamashita and partner YoungAh Kang. The firm has rapidly gained international recognition for its sensitive, contextual designs that poetically integrate architecture with the natural environment. Takashige Yamashita, born in Fukuoka in 1980, studied architecture at Tokai University and Tokyo University of the Arts before joining celebrated firm SANAA, where he honed his skills on prominent projects for over a decade. In 2017, he was joined by Kang, who brought experience from positions at SANAA and the Architectural Association's Design Research Lab after studying at the University of Toronto and University of Pennsylvania. This multigenerational, multinational team combines a grounding in Japanese architectural tradition with global perspectives. Their projects, such as the award-winning Kawaguchiko Toranoko Nursery School and Mori no Clinic, demonstrate a deft handling of materiality, geometry, and lighting to create warm, humane spaces deeply attuned to their settings. With academic appointments at institutions like Kyoto Arts University and several prestigious awards, Takashige Yamashita Office has rapidly become one of Japan's most promising emerging practices, offering a refined yet playful vision of environmental integration.