Day 25: Libraries & Kindergartens

Today was library day I guess! We woke up early and headed out on our travels during rush hour, fun! We were packed on the trains like sardines, but I've realized that even when people are packed on the trains it isn't a bad experience. I have so many nightmares of traveling on the packed trains in San Francisco because everyone is so creepy and all up in your space, or smells bad and it is so hot on the trains and you would rather just get off and walk than endure any more. But in Japan everyone is still very polite and respects your space and no one is bumping into you and no one smells bad.

Anyways, after hours of travel we arrived at the Tama Art University Library by Toyo Ito. They were very uppity about us taking photos so I mainly took them of the exterior. The things I really liked about this library were that it was constructed of catenary arches of all different sizes, and the arches extended from the interior and shaped the exterior of the walls as well. The entire floor was also gently sloped and I think because of this they didn't have any normal chairs. They had really weird stools that were all round at the bottom so they just kind of rolled around on the floor. Also very hard to sit on though.

Once we were done at the library we headed to kindergarten! I thought it was a little bit weird that we were visiting a kindergarten, but I'm really glad we did because we had a lot of fun. We went to Fuji Kindergarten, which I guess has been a case study for awhile now for educational design. They showed us an entire movie on the designs aspects that enhance the children's learning and then we got to walk around the building while the children were just running around us like crazy. The roof of the school is in a ring, so the kids can run around on the roof for hours. They had very little play equipment so that the children would invent games of their own to entertain themselves. 

There they go! My favorite part of the school was a building designed by Peter Cook called "Ring Around a Tree" that was a building well, built around a tree. It was like a really cool tree house, I'm so jealous I didn't get to go to school here!

Phew, here they are finally sitting semi-still. We said goodbye to the kids, which was really sad and headed on for the day. Maybe one day I will design a school so I can play with some kindergarten kids for my job. 

Our last stop was to another library which again allowed no pictures inside. They also had an obscene amount of rules at the Musashino Art University Library. I don't know how I feel about having this many rules for a building because it is a little bit off putting for me. It really restricts me from enjoying the space and just puts a bad taste in my mouth towards the project. But regardless they were very uppity so I didn't take any pictures of the interior. The library was by Sou Fujimoto and it was very beautiful. The walls of the entire place were built of the bookshelves which extended from floor to ceiling. The entire space was also built as a spiral which has again been a case study for making it really easy to find materials. Unfortunately we weren't even allowed to go beyond the second floor so I never got to test this out.