Discussion: The Staircase as a Facade Design Element - Two Housing Blocks in Gifu, Japan
The designs of these public housing schemes, awarded to Kazuyo Sejima and Akiko Takahashi as part of a support programme for women architects, reveal great formal similarities. Both blocks are long and narrow (to facilitate cross-ventilation), and the dwellings are reached via access balconies along the north faces. Striking steel staircases extend externally over the full height of the two buildings, enlivening the somewhat repetitive grid structures of the facades. Officially, the stairs serve merely as escape routes and places of communication, since the lifts are the main form of vertical circulation. The outer faces of the access balconies, clad in perforated sheet metal (Takahashi) and wire mesh (Sejima), have a translucent quality.
