Kazuo Shinohara (1925-2006) is arguably the most influential architect in recent Japanese architecture. Shinohara stated that “a house is a work of art” and his career was almost entirely devoted to designing houses. Besides, he accounted of his residential works as a sequence of “styles”, grouping together works that share certain traits and which belong to a specific period. Shinohara identified very early that his architectural reflections revolve the concept that he calls “urban chaos”. So it is important to analysis how the concept “chaos” be used to design so that we can realize the architectural theory of Shinohara.
Chaos is the science of dynamical, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable. Shinohara said that the term “complexity” could respect the aspect of chaos. So analyze the complexity performed in real works will know how Shinohara integrate his chaos theory into his works.
This paper will focus on both floor plan and elevation of Shinohara’s 38 residential works and discusses the complexity performed in the main floor plan and the facade by using the fractal analysis.
In section 2, use the box-counting method that is one kind of fractal analysis to calculate the box-counting dimension of the main floor plan and the facade of all the house works. The box-counting dimension can describe the complexity of each work.
In section 3, analyze the data collected in the section 2 based on the four “styles”. In addition, clarify the characteristics of each residential styles and analysis Shinohara’s design theory.
The results were as follows:
1. What we can know from the main floor plan is that, most of works belong to the first are performed to be simple. In contrast, most of works belong to the second style are feature to be more complex. The works belong to the third style are featured to be slightly complex and the works belong to the forth style are featured to be the most complicated.
2. What we can know from the facade is that, most works belong to the first style are featured to be complex. Conversely, most of works belong to the second style are featured to be simple. The works belong to the third style are featured to be complex again. The works belong to the forth style are featured to be more complex.
By analyzing the complexity, we can found that there is a clear difference between each style. Besides, there is also a certain transition between styles.
