午夜剧场

Image: Mita Campus North Building

Mita Campus is home to many buildings, including the Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall) completed in 1875, and their shapes vary widely. In recent years, many skyscrapers have been built in the surrounding area, but there are no particularly tall buildings within the campus; even the tallest, the South Building, is only 48.3 meters. This is due to morphological restrictions imposed by a certain law. This is what is commonly known as "shadow-casting regulations."

Shadow-casting regulations were introduced in the 1976 amendment of the Building Standards Act after the construction of mid-to-high-rise apartments in the 1970s led to sunshine-related issues and an increase in lawsuits. In Tokyo, these were implemented in July 1987 as the "Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance on Height Restrictions for Mid-to-High-Rise Buildings Based on Shadows," and Mita Campus, which includes the Chutobu Junior High School and the Girls' Senior High School, is significantly affected by them.

A characteristic of this ordinance is that if an existing building casts a shadow that does not comply with the ordinance, it is not classified as an "illegal building" but rather as "existing non-conforming," meaning it does not have to be demolished immediately. However, it is not treated the same as a compliant building and faces major restrictions when constructing new buildings or additions on the site.

The shadow conditions become even stricter than normal regulations. Examples include requiring the exterior walls of new buildings to be at least 4 meters away from the boundary of adjacent land and reducing the buildable area (floor area ratio) to two-thirds. However, the factor that most affects building morphology is the inability to cast new shadows over the non-conforming shadow areas. Restrictions are imposed that make it difficult to build not only above the non-conforming building but also around it. Generally, schools have many long buildings running east-west located toward the north side of the site. In such cases, shadows exceeding the regulations are likely to be cast primarily on the north side; Mita Campus fits this pattern, casting non-conforming shadows on the adjacent land to the north.

The North Building, which houses the Faculty Club and the North Building Hall at the northernmost end of the campus, clearly illustrates these morphological restrictions. The roof of this building slopes significantly toward the north to minimize the shadow cast on the adjacent land to the north.

Furthermore, to avoid increasing the non-conforming shadows cast toward the Italian Embassy side, the exterior walls of the second and third floors on the west side are slanted toward the north. While the shape of the North Building might appear to be a design choice at first glance, it actually stems from morphological restrictions caused by shadow-casting regulations. When you visit the Faculty Club, I would be pleased if you could view the North Building from this perspective and think, "So the shape of this wall and roof is due to the influence of regulations."

These shadow-casting regulations make it difficult to build high-rise structures on Mita Campus, but whether skyscrapers are suitable for a place of education is perhaps a matter of much debate. Personally, I feel that the current height is probably just right.

(Yu Yanome, Administrative Director, Senior High School)