Daikin Amica Karuizawa

Currently, Karuizawa is known as one of Japan's leading summer resorts, but the eruption of Mount Asama at the end of the 18th century caused the entire area to lose all vegetations, and for a long time the area was unable to grow forests.Large-scale reforestation began in the 19th century, and the forest gradually grew. Western missionaries who visited the area at the end of the 19th century began creating landscape gardens, and the area began to take on its current appearance as a villa area exuding Western culture. Trees planted by Westerners who came to this area remain throughout the site. Some trees over 100 years old remain, such as the rows of fir and katsura trees planted by Hosokawa Moritatsu, the 16th head of the Hosokawa family, who built a villa here in the early 20th century. This area was also the setting for the novel "Kogen" written by Kawabata Yasunari, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and is an area with a long history even within Karuizawa. It is a place where nature created by human hands has been carefully passed down. Daikin Amica Karuizawa is a training and accommodation facility planned by Daikin, which has grown into a global company, as part of its 100th anniversary project, and this historic location was chosen as a fitting location for the project. Taking advantage of the different levels of the topography, the main building is located on the flat ground in the center and the villas is located on the sloping ground in the background.The entrance hall is centered on the axis directly in front of the row of fir trees, retracing the approach from the row of fir trees through a carriage drive when the Hosokawa family's villa was built.The dining room and guest rooms are arranged in a staggered pattern to follow the topography, facing parallel to the row of katsura trees. The floor level is also gradually lowered to match the ground level.By dividing the building volumes into functional sections and layering them in accordance with the landscape (topography, vegetations, history, climate), the potential power of the land in this location is brought to light.