hiroki tominaga-atelier builds photo studio as wooden residence within a warehouse in japan

hiroki tominaga-atelier has completed a photo studio within a warehouse in japan, built as an wooden, one-story house under the steel frame of the existing structure. designed for the purpose of taking pictures for products and magazines in a residential setting, the studio comprises a series of independent living spaces placed on a plan which is long in the east-west direction to ensure plenty of natural light entering from the south, as well as the possibility of long-distance shooting from different angles.all images by yasuhiro nakayama photo office

hiroki tominaga-atelier has built the photo studio as a flexible residential interior, whose finishing can be changed every few years, and whose L-shaped walls are joint at the corner using fittings. at the top of the 2.7-m-high walls, which are required for shooting, there is a small ceiling with a lighting layer above it to better frame the photographs. attached to the studio are a make up room and a semi-outdoor space with no air conditioning, which sits between the main building and the existing warehouse and acts as an additional shooting spot.

while originally the studio proposed a span of wooden houses, the positioning of the crew behind cameras led the span to exceed five meters. instead, 12 quadrangular frames of three and four meters in length have been bundled together to form a structurally redundant ‘stacked beam’ that appears in the lighting layer.

project info:

name: photo studio with 120mm square timber

architect: hiroki tominaga-atelier

total floor area: 202.57 m2

structural design: kawata tomonori structural engineers

construction company: AI architectural city design office

location: japan