2017
Fukuoka (Japan)

concept : colorful grove

Creche Ropponmatsu is a kindergarten located in a residential area in Fukuoka city, accepting capacity of 90 children, age between 0 to 5 years old. Emmanuelle designed the architecture, interior space, logos and graphical signage, with a vision to open a new kindergarten where children can grow up freely in mind and body. Running behind the colorful grove, this kindergarten gives opportunity for children to raise rich sensibility by feeling many colors wherever they are.

Collections of colors jump into the eyes in one glace, as many colors are used in the facade and in the interior space.
On the facade, there are 22 colors used in 63 multi-colored trees of 4 m in height extend the branches rhythmically and wrap the building. While giving full-sized glass with a feeling of openness, by wrapping it with colorful trees, gives a sense of distance to the outside, and visually protects the children in gentle gesture.
In the nursery room, 200 colorful boxes in 25 colors are lined up on the wall, where each one of them belongs to every child to stock their personal goods. Every time children use their own tools or get changed, they find and pick up the box of their color.
The stairs that connect the 4 floors uses 18 colors, where children are surrounded by many colors as the colors of wall changes as they travel up and down the stairs.
The colorful trees are also incorporated in the logo of the kindergarten. The logo is also used on other areas such as Children’s uniforms and bus, to give a sense of unity.
 
Spending time in colorful environment helps to maximize the sensitivity of children and bring out the personality of each child. Surrounded by many colors, touching many colors, living with many colors – the kindergarten wishes to develop rich sensibilities and individuality of children. With this hope in mind, the colorful grove watches the growth of children every day.

2014
Kawaguchi (Japan)

concept : rainbow melody

The site is located on the corner of major intersection, where there is a frequent movement of cars, bicycles and people. Taking this unique location as a characteristic, the facade is designed to be rhythmical that changes expression as people see from different angles.

Colors appear in and out from the rhythmical repetition of cubes, dancing like musical notes playing rainbow melody. The facade is composed of cubes of four different depths. Small elevated gardens are built inside 12 cubes, where the seasonal changes in nature are expressed by seasonal flowers like marigold, lavender, and growing trees such as olive tree. Gardens can be seen from the open space on the first floor, and from the financing section and cafeteria on the second floor. Sunlight is filtered through the foliage of elevated gardens on the South facing facade, providing a harmonious and warm atmosphere inside the bank.

The colors, flowers and trees appear in and out from the repetition of floating cubes, playing rainbow melody. The melody spreads happiness and comfort to visitors and to the people in the local community.

2012
Tokyo

concept : rainbow shower

The site is located in a commercial district with many stores. The site's closeness to the town's activities - also the heavy traffic and narrow sidewalk - inspired Emmanuelle to express this proximity in the building by merging the exterior and interior.

The building is offset approximately 2 meters from the property line, and the timber-decked peripheral space is filled with colorful 9 meter-tall sticks. These 29 exterior sticks, reflected on the transparent glazed facade, mix naturally with the 19 interior sticks placed randomly inside the building. This rainbow shower returns colors and some room for playfulness back to the town. Entering the building, the visitors would notice that they are still in an exterior courtyard leading to the bank's interior. Here also, the inside and outside are integrated. Walking around the glazed courtyard inside, there is a cafe-like open space filled with natural light. The bamboos in the courtyard extend skyward in concert with the colorful sticks.

The exterior deck space, interior open space, exterior courtyard, and the interior teller counters compose four layers of spaces. The layers are reflected on the glazing, and, combined with complex shadows, they create depth in the space.

2011
Tokyo

concept : rainbow mille-feuille

A rainbow-like stack of 12 colored layers, peeking out from the facade to welcome visitors. Upon entering the building, three elliptical skylights bathe the interior in a soft light. Visitors spontaneously look up to see a cut-out piece of the sky that invites them to gaze languidly at it. The open sky and sensation of openness prompts you to take deep breaths, refreshing your body from within. The ceiling is adorned with dandelion puff motifs that seem to float and drift through the air. Three long glass airwells thread through the first and second levels of the building, flooding the interior with natural light as well as "blowing" air through it.

2010
Tokyo

concept : leaf

The facade of the building features silhouettes of trees and an assortment of 14 colors windows arranged in a rhythmical pattern that transforms the facade itself into signage.
ATMs and teller windows are located on the first floor, along with 3 courtyards and an open space. The second storey houses the loan section, reception rooms, offices and 4 courtyards, while the third floor is reserved for facilities for staff use. Thanks to the 7 light-filled courtyards, each of these spaces is loosely connected to all the others. A constellation of leaves in 24 different colors growing on the white branches of the walls and glass windows overlaps with the natural foliage of the real trees in the courtyards, creating the sensation of being in a magical forest.

shikiri / see beyond colors
2014.6.7-11.23
Palazzo Bembo
Venice (Italy)

The exhibition will take place in Palazzo Bembo, the historical Venetian Palazzo, standing along the canal in Venice.
The theme of the Biennale, "Fundamentals", has given opportunities to revisit and rethink the elements in architecture. For this occasion, emmanuelle has decided to re-focus on the importance of her design concept of shikiri, by extracting and representing its essence. Shikiri has been adopted its shape and function according to different time and places for every projects designed in the past. Shikiri has evolved overtime. The concept started from surface shikiri elements, and now has developed to line and point elements. The exhibition highlights the surface and line shikiri, focusing from the architectural approaches and perspectives. Shikiri essence will be represented in the form of models, which are in various scales and suspended in various heights in the room. 1,390 surfaces and 12,100 lines are colored in 36 shades of multicolor palettes. While they symbolize structures, they are also the elements composing space through colors. The exhibit let visitors to experience space with three dimensional layering of colors.

2007
Kawaguchi (Japan)

Hair and beauty salon located in a tranquil residential area of Saitama, the neighboring prefecture of Tokyo. Sliding shikiri, ceiling-hung colored partitions system, was designed to create private and semi-private space. This product unlike fixed wall panels is flexible enough to be relocated at anytime, anyplace.