Police Station Design | Koban | Kumamoto City | Japan | Klein Dytham Architecture

Kumamoto City, the Prefecture’s largest city, has a new bullet train station. Toyo Ito, the current Artpolis commissioner, oversaw the commissioning of several new buildings around the station, including entrance canopies on either side of the station designed by Ryue Nishizawa and by Mitsuhiko Sato. KDa’s project also formed part of the Kumamoto Artpolis program.
KDa’s koban, or neighborhood police station, stands on a teardrop-shaped site, separated from the large surrounding buildings by taxi stands and a tramline. Looking to make a sculptural gesture in this wide, open space, We designed a ribbon of perforated steel plate running around the top of the building.

To create the friendly, fun image, they colored the upper floor volume and the inside of ribbon with a gentle rainbow gradation, so that the colors visible through the holes change as people move around the area......more