J-Pop Center

The J-Pop Center is a 3-story plus basement, 20,000 sf, $10 million mixed-use commercial building in San Francisco’s Japantown, that is aiming to revitalize the area by introducing Japanese Pop culture to the American public.

The building program consists of a 150 seat cinema featuring contemporary Japanese and Asian movies, a bookstore for Japanese manga and anime with a small café, and two floors of offices.

The idea of “tsutsumu” — the traditional Japanese art of wrapping which uses layers of material to elevate the significance of the contents enclosed within — brings together two seemingly contradictory aspects of the building concept: a serene and reduced architectural aesthetic that, like the Japanese concept of “enzo”, allows viewers to project their own ideas into the object of their contemplation, along with the “Pop” aesthetic reflected in the bright and animated layers that envelop the minimal shell just like layers of clothing which can be changed according to the current fashion.

Based on this concept the façade design is kept in a minimal design that plays with layers of translucent and transparent materials and textures, allowing and obscuring views in and out of the building. The storefront is slightly set back from the rest of the façade and completely transparent in order to allow views into the retail component of the building and to pull people from the street into the building. The exterior materials are a mix of structural glass channels and clear glass windows, overlaid with an interior system of changeable and translucent sliding “shoji screen” panels that introduce the “Pop” layer while also providing shade. Because of these moveable panels, the appearance of the building changes continuously during the day and also at night, when the building will emit a soft glow and will appear like a Japanese lantern.