Silver Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2025
Global Crest Kita Omura Car Dealer
- A' Design Award 2025 Silver Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2025
- CLIENT: Global Crest
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 21,599
- Verification code 7133898FE2 · Verify this award
About Global Crest Kita Omura Car Dealer
Global Crest Kita Omura is a car dealership showroom in Omura, Nagasaki, Japan. The site is a rare flat area of farmland, with Omura Bay to the west and the Tatara Mountains to the east. Three sides of the building are fully glazed, so the surrounding landscape stays visible from inside. A large roof with four meter cantilevered eaves is supported by slim 75 millimeter square steel columns set on a four meter grid. The sheltered outer space is used for vehicle delivery and viewing. The total floor area is 705.68 square meters.
Masakatsu Matsuyama's Global Crest Kita Omura Car Dealer represents a distinguished achievement in contemporary commercial architecture, demonstrating how functional retail spaces can transcend their utilitarian purposes to become compelling works of spatial poetry. The design emerges from a tradition of glass pavilion architecture that traces its lineage through modernist explorations of transparency, structural minimalism, and the dissolution of boundaries between interior and exterior realms. The architect appears to engage deeply with questions of presence and absence, weight and lightness, creating a structure where the emphatic horizontal roof plane seems to hover above an almost dematerialized glass enclosure. Technical accomplishment manifests in the precise engineering of the dramatic cantilevers, which extend the protective canopy beyond the building envelope while maintaining visual thinness and apparent weightlessness. The chromatic strategy proves particularly sophisticated, establishing a dialogue between the warm sanctuary of illuminated interior space and the encompassing coolness of the twilight landscape. Interior landscape elements suggest a commitment to biophilic design principles, introducing natural forms that soften the architectural rigor while reinforcing connections to the surrounding environment. The approach sequence, gently curving toward the luminous facade, creates a choreographed experience of arrival that transforms commercial transaction into spatial event. One observes how the ground-level lighting establishes a threshold zone, a luminous border that mediates between the darkened earth and the glowing interior realm. The structure might be understood as an architectural lantern, a beacon that announces presence while maintaining transparency and openness. Viewers may contemplate how this work negotiates the tensions inherent in commercial architecture, creating spaces that serve functional requirements while offering moments of genuine aesthetic experience and spatial contemplation.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Located in northern Omura City, a rare flat area in Nagasaki, the site is rural, with Omura Bay to the west and the Tatara Mountains to the east. The design harmonizes with the landscape, bringing outdoor beauty inside. A 4m grid space with 75mm steel columns supports a cantilevered roof. The glass facade connects vehicle handovers to the scenery, while the contrast between the thick roof and thin columns creates a delicate, tense atmosphere.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Total floor area:705.68 square meters
- Tags
- Car sub-dealer, showroom, car, roof, steel, cantilever, horizontal, grid, glass architecture, Japan
- Production Technology
- To enhance energy efficiency, three sides of the building, except the west, are fully glazed. The steel columns are reduced to a minimal 75millimeter square solid steel, creating a seamless connection between the townscape and activities such as vehicle deliveries and viewings under the 4m cantilevered eaves, as well as negotiations inside. The combination of the thick roof and slim columns emphasizes the roof's surface, creating a delicate and tense atmosphere.
- Design Challenge
- The desired form was a gate-like frame extending from the building, commonly seen in dealerships, creating a sheltered space for vehicle deliveries and viewings without getting wet in the rain. The 4-meter cantilevered eaves on all sides serve the functions of vehicle delivery and viewing.
- Project Duration
- The project, located in Omura, Nagasaki, Japan, had a design period from May 2022 to May 2023 (12 months) and a construction period from June 2023 to January 2024 (8 months).
- Operation Flow
- In order for end users to purchase a car, sub-dealers provide detailed information about the car and encourage viewing and test drives.
- Research
- We value "interpreting the potential of the land and deriving an architectural form and lifestyle unique to that place" in our design practice. Since architecture is created in different locations and under varying clients and conditions, each solution inevitably differs. In this project, we proposed architecture that realizes the client's vision by interpreting the unique environment and transforming fixed perceptions to build a new future.
- Inspiration
- Traditionally, sub-dealers display cars for sale alongside the road, with shop buildings often placed at the back of the site, making them less visible from the outside. Although various cars can be displayed in front of main streets, tacky price tags and figures tend to catch people's eyes instead of the shop buildings. We aimed for architecture that acts as signage for the shop, eliminating the common impression of a typical sub-dealer.
- Image Credits
- Image＃1：Photographer Toshihisa Ishii(Blitz STUDIO),GC Kitaomura,2024.
Image＃2：Photographer Toshihisa Ishii(Blitz STUDIO),GC Kitaomura,2024.
Image＃3：Photographer Toshihisa Ishii(Blitz STUDIO),GC Kitaomura,2024.
Image＃4：Photographer Toshihisa Ishii(Blitz STUDIO),GC Kitaomura,2024.
Image＃5：Photographer Toshihisa Ishii(Blitz STUDIO),GC Kitaomura,2024. - Patents
- The copyright belongs to Matsuyama Architectural Design Office, 2024.