Photography: Kindaikenchiku-sha Co., Ltd.

This campus is located at the tip of Tama hills with abundant nature. The whole site retains the hilly geographical feature as rolling hills. In designing this building, emphasis was placed on integration with the existing natural environment by taking advantage of the approximately 9 m elevation difference of the land in the construction planning. With approaches from both the central level of the campus (2F) and the courtyard level (1F), clusters of classrooms are arranged around the central atrium staircase, which adjusts the level differences. On top of that, considering the concentrated use of the students, an important aim of the floor plan was to include as much communal areas as possible to provide the students space to hang out or move around. Moreover, the central atrium staircase also functions as an environmental device to effectively draw in the natural wind and light through a natural ventilation system and a solar light tracking and collecting system.