The Institute is comprised of the Tenri School of Japanese Language and the Tenri Gallery.  The gallery is used for both public exhibitions and performances and serves as an informal lounge for students to study and socialize before and after classes. Offices and classrooms are separated from the gallery with large surfaces of translucent and transparent glass panels which choreograph views between the adjacent spaces. A large curtain can enclose part of the gallery and provide acoustical control for musical performances.

The design took full advantage of the top floor location by using custom skylights in the middle and rear of the loft to modulate natural light to create varying perceptions of depth. In both locations, the skylights are designed to allow light to enter both directly through a single layer of clear glass and indirectly through an additional layer of etched glass accentuating the varying qualities of light. Shading devices can also be used to more directly control lighting conditions. A new bedroom mezzanine was added in the back half of the loft which can be either opened or closed to the adjacent living / dining space with sliding etched glass panels. A new roof deck is accessed from the mezzanine extending the living spaces outside with expansive views of the city.

As the founder and owner of a large health care company, the client has a philosophical interest in spatial and managerial organizations which allow patterns of activities, both social and work, to unfold and form based on smaller individual tasks rather than singular bureaucratic demands. This interest led to a detailed exchange of ideas about how to organize program within a home office.

The site consisted of two units of a townhouse on the upper west side of Manhattan which combined, forming a three story space with a roof terrace.  The most challenging aspect of the unit was the narrow width of the building—thirteen feet—and solving program relationships vertically between the three floors.

The design evolved from the multiple program demands, often conflicting, that were placed on each space.  Boundaries between home and work had to be flexible with the ability to shift quickly and easily both horizontally between rooms and vertically between levels. The lower level could also be separated for out-of-town business associates to stay overnight.

The exhibition design was organized around the display of the artifacts within four time periods, Meiji, Art Deco, Pop, and Zen.  Conceptually the gallery was divided into four quadrants around the perimeter, allowing for those periods to be understood as a linear, chronological sequence.  Simultaneously, a middle zone, the area of Face to Face, provided alternative readings of the chronology by allowing and, in fact at times encouraging, viewers to glance between the various periods to reveal other relationships.

Face to Face was a display of black and white photographs of everyday Japanese women from the different time periods to reveal changing conceptions of beauty and the influence of western cultures on eastern identity.  It was a zone of interaction “inviting visitors to reflect upon their own cultural values and the choices of identity that characterize modern life.”  It allowed both the chance and the predetermined alignments of specific objects and of the people viewing the exhibition.  It was a space of interpretation, a space between.  Face to Face reversed the conditions of inside and outside, interiority and exteriority, by allowing specific parts of the exhibition to be viewed from the “back” while inside was a more intimate gallery of faces. The interstitial space of Face to Face allowed for the possibility that connections would be made across groupings, that histories may be shared, or that viewers would come face to face with each other.

One of the primary goals was to provide an intimate teaching environment for large classes by minimizing the need for amplified sound. Through the use of a computer generated acoustical model of the space, certain material and geometry characteristics were developed which influenced the final design. A custom gradated perforated pattern on the wall panels, which were fabricated directly from design files, allowed sound to reflect from the front of the space and be absorbed toward the back. The curved ceiling geometry also reinforced the sound projection throughout the space creating evenly distributed sound levels suitable for both teaching and large events.

Like many institutional projects, construction was completed during the summer on all of these projects when the programs and uses would be least affected.