KENGO KUMA x WESTBANK SAN JOSE COLLECTION
PARK HABITAT
INDUSTRY — Architecture
SCOPE OF WORK — Branding, Book Design, Copywriting, Production
CLIMATE ACTION NOTES — Printed on FSC Certified Paper | Printed at a Carbon Neutral Facility
YEAR — 2020
What if we could work in a park? Blurring the line between nature and the built environment results in building design driven by performance. A better relationship to nature will make this a more meaningful place to work and live.
This is the founding vision for Park Habitat, a commercial building designed by world-renowned architect Kengo Kuma that integrates the beauty and serenity of nature.
Park Habitat brings the lush green of nature into the city of San Jose. A tactile linen wrap with white foiled text and luxurious edge painting fully encases the book's exterior in green—a metaphor for the vegetation prominently featured throughout the sustainable structure. The layout of the interior pages is asymmetrical and rhythmic, mirroring the distinct topographic levels of the building. Floods of green appear throughout the book to reinforce the integration of nature into the architecture. The clean, minimal design of the book beautifully communicates the spirit of the project, transforming the workplace into a park.
At the heart of Park Habitat is a “green lung,” an open space that travels from the ground floor to the top of the building, inviting light and air to permeate the structure. A pull-out feature inside the book mirrors this functionality, showcasing the architectural feature and serving as a metaphor for the “green lung.”
The shape and proportions of the space rely on wind pressures in tandem with operable facades, thermal mass and vegetation to draw air into the spaces by day and flush air and heat by night—architectural inhalation and exhalation on a 24-hour cycle. The Green Lung brings light deep into each floor and surprises as a vertical garden, pervading the building's atmosphere.
—Kengo Kuma
Each book in this limited edition set represents the unique perspective of an internationally acclaimed architect for the San Jose sustainability renewal initiative. Custom printed linen covers and the individually unique layout design of each book expresses not only the innovative architecture but the spirit and harmony created by its respect for nature. The collection is an anthology of beauty and purpose in design.
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