Portal for Japanese minimalist architecture

panda is a renovation project of a family-type room of an apartment that was built 18 years ago.

Its plan (with a living room, dining room, kitchen, and 3 person rooms) reflects the average family structure in Japan at that time.

This layout has since become out-of-date and has been largely replaced by the studio-type apartment with more spatial openness, reflecting changes in the make-up of the average family. We strove to reflect this social change in the project.

The unchangeable part of the structure of the building appears around the windows, like black patches around a panda’s eyes, by overlaying a contemporary and open layout onto the existing structure of the building.

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