A Cat Tower
This renovation project aims to provide a space in an cat shelter run by a animal welfare NPO. The space will function as a lounge where cat-lovers meet with their potential future family. The room itself is a former family dwelling/workshop of a metalworks.
Linoleum flooring is selected for this cat cafe for making cleaning easy, and also OSB (Oriented Strand Board) is chosen for its scratch resistance against clawing.
Tables, chairs, cat towers and some small boxes are furnished in this cafe.
The design focused on “DIY-bility” and “expandability”. Especially, the design of the cat towers, sticks to simple structure by stacking boxes rather than adapting ideas from off the shelf products. The boxes were made with holes, connecting each other, and on the sides where the animals would enter and exit. Industrial woven bands generally used for securing material on trucks were used for assembly.
The same philosophy was implemented for the tables, so that changing the room layout and adaption after moving-in would be easy.
As each component is capable of individual replacement in case of breakage, and expansion by addition, I hope to see how the modular structure of the cat towers will adapt.
credit
Project Name: A Cat Tower
Architect: TANK (Naritake Fukumoto)
Construction: TANK
Photo: Kenta Hasegawa
Place: Tokyo, Japan
Date: 2016.11
