THIRTEEN years ago, Junya Ishigami astonished the architecture world with the completion of the Kanagawa Institute of Technology (KAIT) Workshop, a glazed parallelogram supported by a staggering 305 sliver-like columns (record, November 2008). Now Ishigami has done it again with the Plaza at KAIT. Instead of columns, the main motif this time is thin sheets of pure white steel. Perforated with win-dowlike openings, the panels enclose a versatile semi-outdoor space- the main place on campus where students can kick back and cut loose. As with the Workshop, the Plaza sits comfortably within KAIT's gridded master plan, but its unique geometry relates to local site adjacencies. Devoid of right angles, the structure's 43,000-square-foot, roughly trapezoidal footprint curves slightly inward, acknowledging the arched plan of an adjacent baseball diamond, but comes to a sharp corner near its own main entrance, opposite the Workshop. Two additional doorways are located on the opposite and adjacent walls respectively.
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