ANDO IN TOTO.

An idyllic site on the precipitous shore of a Japanese island provides the setting for a company retreat.

Tadao Ando's seminar house for TOTO, manufacturer of plumbing equipment, is a retreat for the company's employees; a place where they can bring their families for restful weekends, and where conferences and training seminars take place. The natural and man-made circumstances in which these events take place are, by any measure, inspiring.

Ando was asked by the firm to find a site that would be spiritually refreshing and the place he chose is on the shore of Awaji Island, near Kobe. Facing south-east across Osaka Bay, it lies on the brow of a hill which drops 100m through lush forest down to the sea. To the east across the bay is the faint impression of Kansai International Airport, the antithesis of retreat.

The site produced in Ando the vision of a building that was `at one' with the sea. In the event, it is a vision that acknowledges elemental harmony and danger. Underlying the idyll is the fact that the area is inherently unstable and was part of the epicentre of the 1995 earthquake. The notion of opposition recurs in design of the building. Strong architectonic forms respond to the drama of the setting and there is an essential solidity about the dove grey concrete and imperforate walls. But the apparently precarious perch on the hillside, flying cantilevers and insubstantial tower all contribute to the occasional impression that the building is about to take off.

Accommodating itself to the contours of the 45 degree slope, the scheme encompasses eight levels. The two uppermost ones with an entrance hall and double-height sitting room are contained in a rectangular pavilion, cantilevered west-east across the main grain of the scheme.

Beneath it, three storeys of communal rooms and three of small apartments for guests are arranged across the flattest part of the site so that every room has a view of the sea. A fourth-storey roof terrace, with a linear swimming pool, shoots off the edge of the site and traces the trajectory of the main south-west to north-east axis. It points towards Osaka, the provenance of most guests.

The fulcrum of this dynamic composition is the slender lift tower which rising from the base of the scheme on the west asserts the vertical dimension of the scheme. It is connected to the entrance pavilion by an equally slender and insubstantial bridge.

Ando's promenades architecturales are always masterly, and in passing through the different levels the visitor is exposed to different sensations. His habit of using the tatami mat as a unit of measurement gives this building, like others he has designed, a human dimension. His interiors are austerely controlled and minimally furnished. But always you are made aware of the ungovernable elements outside. Descending from the calm shelter of the entrance pavilion, where the glazed east wall frames an abstract view of limitless sea, you must face the elements on the open bridge to the lift tower -- an experience which Ando describes as `walking on top of the ocean'. Similar sensations are produced by the fourth floor terrace, apparently floating in mid-air.

Conversely at the lowest levels, the scheme takes a domestic turn. Guests are housed in maisonettes entered from above, with stairs leading down to airy double-height living rooms. Some are furnished in Western style, others with traditional tatami mats and low tables. Here, there is a lawn and vertiginous views are screened by a belt of trees.

Architect

Tadao Ando Architect & Associates

Project architects

Tadao Ando, Takashi Muto

Structural engineer

Ascoral Engineering Associates

Electrical engineer

Setsubi-Giken

JV of Takenaka Corporation , Saeki Kensetsu Kogyo

Contractor

1,2,3,5 by Shigo Ogawa/Japan Architect/Shinkenchiku-sha 4 by Mitsuo Matsuoka

Photographs

1. Looking east across the roof of the entrance pavilion.

2. An eighth floor window in the entrance pavilion gives onto the top of the lift tower.

3. From the east.

4. Communal rooms look south-east over the sea above fourth floor terrace and swimming pool.

5. Double-height sitting room in entrance pavilion with glazed east wall framing abstract view of the sea.