浅野学園100周年記念リングおよび広場

Symbolism and new technology

We were invited to redesign the space around a monument of Soichiro Asano located in the campus of Asano High school in Yokohama. He was one of Japan’s pioneering industrialists during the second half of the 19th and the early decades of the 20th Century. The monument is placed on a hill, a symbol of the school, appropriately named “Dōzōyama” literraly “Bronze Statue Mountain” which is overlooking the bay of Tokyo and the Keihin Industrial Area.
We employed high-strength fiber reinforced ductile concrete which allowed us to create very light and thin ring structure (1800mm wide and 32mm thick at its thinnest), which serves as an observation platform. When gazing to the south-east one can comprehend the scale of the Keihin Industrial Area build on reclaimed land thanks to the pioneering efforts of Asano himself. At the same time from the train the passes at the foot of the hill one could see the new installation as weightless ring which illuminated from bellow at night appears to float.
Via stones tiles engraved with short episodes from Asano’s life we strived to create a tool through which the pupils could vicariously experience his journey of successes and failures.
There is still lack of data regarding the strength properties of ductile concrete. With the joint efforts of the manufacturers and builders we conducted experimentation, and hope that the gathered data will aid in terms of popularization and accessibility to this elegant material.