Tag Archives: tokyo olympics

This Japanese architect’s fairytale teahouse covered in a grassy facade is topped with a yakisugi-treated timber loft!

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Japanese architect and architectural historian Terunobu Fujimori is known for his quirky teahouses and fondness for unusual city structures. His latest tea house transports an elf’s cottage from the pages of a fairytale to the concrete of Tokyo. Featuring grassy facades, timber treated with yakisugi, and a lofty vista point, the teahouse, called Goan, is sightly positioned in front of the new National Stadium of Tokyo where it remained until 5 September 2021 in celebration of the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Poking out from the corner of one facade, visitors can crawl through a circular hole, traditionally known as a ‘Nijiriguchi,’ to gain entry to the tea room’s interior. Moving inside, visitors pass through the grassy exterior and are welcomed by an entirely unstained wooden first floor. Functioning as a reinterpretation of ‘Nijiriguchi,’ a small wooden staircase and ladder connects the bottom floor with the upper tea room.

Upstairs, visitors can enjoy a cup of tea and a view of the National Stadium designed by Kengo Kuma. From the outside, the upstairs tearoom inside Goan is visually separated from the first floor with a timber exterior constructed from yakisugi treated wood, a traditional Japanese method of wood preservation. The tea room is swaddled in polished natural wooden panels and furniture, giving the room an air of organic warmth.

Standing as one of eight pavilions that are designed to showcase Japan’s future of urban architecture and art, the Goan Teahouse was installed as part of the city’s Pavilion Tokyo 2021 initiative. The initiative coincided with the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where six world-renowned Japanese architects and two artists each designed a one-of-a-kind pavilion for fans of the games and city visitors and residents to enjoy.

Designer: Terunobu Fujimori

Plots of grass were used to cover the exterior of Goan, a natural choice for Fujimori. 

Inside, visitors access the upper tearoom via a wooden staircase and ladder, a reinterpretation of ‘nijiriguchi.’

Upstairs, visitors can enjoy a cup of tea and city views inside a room decked out in polished natural wood.

The National Stadium designed by Kengo Kuma is a direct sightline from the upper vista point inside the tearoom. 

Fujimori worked alongside undergraduate architecture students from Ouchida Laboratory to finish Goan. 

Fujimori’s plans for Goan are now on display at the Watarium Art Museum.

The post This Japanese architect’s fairytale teahouse covered in a grassy facade is topped with a yakisugi-treated timber loft! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Olympic Cauldron designed by Nendo “blossoms” open to reveal the eternal fire of the Tokyo Olympics

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The cauldron, which was lit on Friday to flag off the Tokyo Olympics, was created on the philosophy of “All gather under the Sun, all are equal, and all receive energy”. Showcased as the centerpiece of the Olympic Opening Ceremony, the ‘kinetic’ cauldron started by first assuming a spherical shape, blooming open to reveal the fire-pit within. The fire was fueled by hydrogen energy too, keeping in line with Japan’s commitment to an eco-friendly Olympics.

Designer: Nendo

The cauldron is the handiwork of Japan-based design studio Nendo, based on an underlying concept by Mansai Nomura, the Chief Executive Creative Director of the planning team for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. The design was arrived at after 85 different iterations, including trapping flames in a heat-resistant glass orb to even a concept with a spinning inferno, designed to look like a spherical sun. The final design uses ten aluminum panels with reflective interiors that open upward and outward, “blooming” to welcome the final torchbearer. “This expresses not only the Sun itself, but also the energy and vitality that can be obtained from it, such as plants sprouting, flowers blooming, and hands opening wide toward the sky”, says Nendo founder Oki Sato.

A distinct feature of the cauldron was its use of Hydrogen fuel, a zero-emissions source of energy. The hydrogen was produced at a facility in Fukushima Prefecture, which is currently undergoing recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in 2011. Given that Hydrogen burns with a colorless and transparent flame, sodium carbonate was added to it, to give it the unmistakable yellow hue associated with the sun. The sodium carbonate was sprayed into the fire at varying angles, creating that shimmering effect of firewood being stoked.

The overall cauldron measures 3.5 meters (11.4 feet) in diameter when open, and weighs 2.7 tonnes. Each of the 10 aluminum panels weighs a stunning 40 kilograms, and was meticulously cut from a 10 mm thick aluminum plate and molded using a special hot-press machine to eliminate any warping due to heat. The internal drive unit was designed to be as compact as possible, while also being highly waterproof, fireproof, and heat resistant. Mirrors on the inside of the aluminum panels helped ‘multiply’ the effect of the fire by creating shimmering reflections, and the entire installation was repeatedly tested for heat and wind resistance to prevent any error even under highly varying conditions.

At the finale of the opening ceremony on Friday the 23rd, the cauldron was revealed within the Kengo Kuma-designed Tokyo National Stadium, and was lit with the ceremonial fire by Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka.

Tokyo 2021 Olympics gets a new showstopper – a basketball playing Japanese robot who made a flawless half-court shot!

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At the ongoing Tokyo 2021 Olympics, world-class athletes are showcasing their talent, but a robot stole all the limelight during a basketball game between the U.S. and France. Demonstrating the early stages of the machine-dominated dystopian future, the seven-foot robot developed by Toyota engineers scored a perfect three-pointer and half-court shot. The eerily designed robot took to the center stage at halftime break during Sunday’s showdown game that France won by 89-79.  The Toyota engineers have created this free throw shooting robot in their free time over the last couple of years – and at the game – the smart machine beat human players shot for shot. It perfectly landed an easy free throw, a three-pointer, and a flawless half-court shot (just like Stephen Curry) in tandem to wow the crowd!

The robot has a very peculiar bumpy surface, Kawhi Leonard-like big hands, iRobot-like head shape, and moves on two wheels to position itself for the shots. By the look of things, this basketball shooting automaton looks to be the CUE4, the updated version of the CUE3 that set the Guinness world record in 2019. The robot uses sensors on the torso and a camera eye positioned somewhere around the nose to judge the distance of the shot and basket angle. Then the motorized arms and knees flex to make the shot perfectly. However, it is not as advanced to overshadow professional basketball players like Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, Sue Bird, or A’ja Wilson in a full game. It moves too slowly and the motion is also not that swift. A Toyota engineer said back in 2019 that it will take almost two decades to acquire skills like running or dunking for such robots!

In a free throw duel, this robot is unbeatable since it is consistent day-in and day-out as compared to human counterparts who are vulnerable to mistakes. The robot is designed in a way to repeat the same action with perfect accuracy owning to its AI software and it doesn’t have to deal with its own monsters – things like metal pressure and stress of a big game. Perhaps, Toyota can take design inspiration from Boston Dynamics who have developed some amazing life-like robots like Spot the dog robot and Atlas who made our jaws drop with their dance moved for the New Year’s celebrations.

If this basketball shooting robot can acquire the intelligence and agility of pro basketball players, Mark Cuban would be eyeing to get this basketball robot in his Dallas Mavericks team!

Designer: Toyota

Lifting weights in a Panasonic exosuit destined for the Tokyo Olympics

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Exosuits, exoskeletons and power-assist suits are mostly a thing of science fiction, used for battling alien menaces or lifting extremely heavy obstacles. Mostly. Now companies like Panasonic are making the case for actually using one. The reality is...

The tech-laden Tokyo Olympics have been postponed

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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has finally accepted that the summer games in Tokyo can't go ahead. Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, asked Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC, for a delay on the phone earlier today. The coronavirus pan...

Snapchat will host exclusive NBC Olympics coverage

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The 2020 Olympic Summer Games don't commence for six months, but plenty of marketing work goes into the international event well beforehand. NBC, which owns the media rights to the Olympic Games, has renewed its deal with Snap to publish daily covera...

Toyota will offer rides in self-driving cars at the Tokyo Olympics

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Toyota has revealed details of an upcoming public test for its level-4 automated vehicle and "Chauffeur" self-driving tech, and sports fans headed to Tokyo next year for the Olympic Games will have the chance to try it out. The automaker is offering...

AI and automation are making office life easier

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AI and automation have revolutionized the manufacturing sector with robots working alongside humans on factory floors. Now, those same sorts of technologies are beginning to find their way into corporate offices and are rapidly changing the way we co...