A koban is a police box. A small building with a desk and a chair.
Two or three work here, sometimes only one.
There are many koban in Japan. On every crossing of significance you can find one.
Police is easy to find that way. Policemen do their job from the koban on a bicycle.
Some koban are nicely located.
Others are a bit more 'utilitarian'.
Sometimes they are incorporated in a larger building, leaving only the front door visible.
The idea of the koban is already very old. In Edo period (1600 - 1868) the powers of the shogunate kept a close eye on society. Ubiquitous police was in important instrument in that. It is said that Japanese prudentness and politeness originated then. People were killed for little or no misconduct so apologizing immediately could make the difference between life and death.
But a koban is above all a great opportunity for architects to build something remarkable.
This one is in Shibuya, a lively shopping area. Architect is Edward Suzuki.
In this case your colleagues have to be your friends.
This koban looks to be inspired on origami, the Japanese art of folding paper.
Apparantly there is no such thing as a standard koban. And that is a great asset of the governmental building agency here. It is very tempting to standardise such a small thing. The challenge now is to design an outstanding koban. Or the least outstanding. The latter can be found in the posting below.
No comments:
Post a Comment