grin grin

“Island City” is a large, roughly 400 ha artificial island on the eastern side of Hakata Bay. The client, Fukuoka City, planned to create a new nature on this stark and flat artificial island and proposed a central park with a total area of 15.3 ha and a 1.7 km long green belt. The core facility of this park, named “Grin Grin”, is the first building in this island. Our proposal aimed to provide a fluid and gentle change to the landscape of the whole park in order to bring various activities to the visitors. Here, Grin Grin is not an autonomous object, but rather an entirely new environment that merges into the topographic changes of the surrounding undulating landscape and forms a gentle spatial spiral for people to gather within. The whole landscape becomes a series of hills continuous throughout the interior and exterior where people, light and air crisscross. The interior of this approximately 5,000 sqm complex is divided into three roughly equal spaces, each one featuring different flowers and vegetation. The northern section is a free space with the largest green area, the central section is mainly for exhibiting subtropical plants, and the south section functions as a workshop space where visitors can experience and learn how to grow plants. These three spaces are continuous to each other through the spiral form, which also generates continuity between the inside and outside. The fully planted rooftop serves as a walkway that provides a sweeping view of the entire island. Here, the distinction between the ground and the roof is almost erased. Grin Grin creates a variety of places. People can freely choose the places where they wish to sit, lay down or walk around. One could say that it is a park like a building, as well as a building like a park.

Born in 1941. After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Department of Architecture in 1965, Mr. Ito worked for the Metabolist architect Kiyonori Kikutake until 1969. In 1971 he opened his own office, Urban Robot (URBOT), which was renamed to Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects in 1979. He has taught at the University of Tokyo as a Visiting Lecturer (1988-89), at Columbia University (1991) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (1999) as a Visiting Professor, at Kyoto University as a Visiting Lecturer (2002-07) and at Tama Art University as a Guest Professor (2002). He also has been a commissioner of the Kumamoto Artpolis since 2005.
Main projects:   Brugge Pavilion (2002), Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2002 (2002), Matsumoto Performing Arts Centre (2004), Tod’s Omotesando Building (2004), Island City Central Park Grin Grin (2005), Mikimoto Ginza 2 (2005), Meiso no Mori Municipal Funeral Hall (2006), Hopital Cognacq-Jay (2006, Paris), VivoCity (2006, Singapore), Tama Art University Library (Hachioji campus) (2007), The Main Stadium for 2009 World Games (2009, Taiwan R.O.C.), Za-Koenji Public Theatre (2009).