Yokohama International Port Terminal

Location: Yokohama, Japan

Client: Port and Harbour Authority and the City of Yokohama, Japan

Date: 1995 Competition 1st Prize, 2002 Construction

Total Area: 48,000m² complex including: 17,000m² passenger handling zone for national and international passengers, custom and immigration procedures, 500m² of shops, 3,000m² of restaurants, 500m² of conference space and parking space for 600 cars.

Budget: £150 million

Team credits:

FOA Partner in charge: Alejandro Zaera-Polo  and  Farshid Moussavi

Competition: Ivan Ascanio, Yoon King Chong, Michael Cosmas, Jung-Hyun Hwang, Guy Westbrook

Basic design: Felix Bendito, Victoria Castillejos, Dafne Gil, Jordi Mansilla

Detailed design: Kensuke Kishikawa, Yasuhisa Kikuchi, Izumi Kobayashi, Kenichi Matsuzawa, Tomofumi Nagayama, Xavier Ortiz, Lluis Viu Rebes, Keisuke Tamura.
Construction Phase: Shokan Endo, Kensuke Kishikawa, Yasuhisa Kikuchi, Izume Kobayashi, Kenichi Matsuzawa, Tomofumi Nagayama, Keisuke Tamura.

The Yokohama International Port Terminal is a transportation facility integrated with urban functions. The building is designed as an unfolding of the pier surface, simultaneously hosting the terminal functions and creating a very large urban park on the roof of the terminal.

The building is organised around a circulation system which challenges both the linear structure characteristic of piers, and the directionality of the circulation, using a series of interlocking circulation loops designed to produce an uninterrupted and multi-directional space.

The building was designed as a transformation of the circulation diagram into a folded and bifurcated surface which hosts the complementary programs. To maximize flexibility, a unique structural system is designed as an integral part of the folded surface, minimizing vertical structure.