This is an in-company day nursery for the part-time women laborers, who are working at the nearby small factory. Since the first floor of the two-storied building is occupied by products storage, the day nursery on the second floor is a minimum sized one of only 66 square meters. In order to compensate that narrowness, I designed the nursery room as a high ceiling vaulted hall, in which giant furniture would be able to be arranged in the future and prepared a wooden slat-floored terrace in front to extend the playing space. This is the roof of a carport and the slat-floor is not counted in the statutory limited floor area.

DATA ; Two-story reinforced concrete building / Location : Nishi-Magome, Ohta-ku, Tokyo / Design : Takeo Kamiya architect and associates, July - October 1980 / Structural design : Yasukatsu Asada / Mechanical design : Toru Watanabe / Electrical design : Tsugio Igami / Furniture : Suruga isho / Windmill : Shinken Kodama / Construction : Shioda Construction, October 1980 - March 1981 / Site aria : 140 square meters / Total floor aria : 136 square meters

Sectional Perspective

   Interior of the Nursery Room ( photo: K. Nemoto )

In-company day nurseries are increasing for the purpose of maintaining women labor and a steady work place. This building was planned as a typical one of those facilities. The first floor is for the storage of products of a metal processing company and the second floor is a very small nursery taking care of four sucklings and ten toddlers.

Using the legally limited floor area of 66 square meters to maximum efficiency, I made the flight of stairs to the second floor outside, which connects to the neighboring children’s park. At the top of the stairs was made a wooden slat-floored terrace in front of the nursery room to expand the children’s activities.
Under the vaulted roof, which was made in maximum height under the statutory setback regulation as an oblique line. Giant furniture is intended to be set to raise the utilization of space.