In 1980, Arata Isozaki completed an odd building in Otsu, a few kilometers away from Kyoto. To celebrate the 30-years of a glass company, a large set of facilities for its employees are set tightly in an urban gap close to the factories. The project incorporates a variety of at-the-time-state-of-the-art materials used in a rather bold and expressive manner, making for a unique but understudied project in Isozaki’s career. Glass bricks fly, claddings become mantles, cables turn into overcoats. Columns alternatively act as decor, or as symbolic centers. Capitals turn into paint, and light fixtures dissolve in the texture of the walls.

All in all, Isozaki’s project will be understood as a celebration of the stuff buildings are made of. Its thinking through elements will be the starting point of our workshop. We will collectively start by observing, dissecting, and depicting the 1980 building. Then we will propose a new possible life for these elements, reorganizing them into a 2025 project for housing. Re-use will thus become the tool of an optimistic fiction.