Award Number : 09D06001 Award-winning item : Station and Compound Building[IWAMIZAWA Compound Station Building] Company : WorkVisions Architects Office+Iwamizawa Brick Project secretariat Designer： Hiroshi Nishimura, WorkVisions Architects Office

In December 2000, the third Iwamizawa Station building burned down. Approximately eight years later, in March 2009, the long-awaited fourth station building was completed as part of a complex including city facilities. Following the opening of JR Iwamizawa Station in June 2007, the city of Iwamizawa exchange plaza, providing the city's citizens with a venue for a variety of activities as well as various services, and the Ariake passage (an open passage), which links the districts to the north and south of the station, both have opened. Together, these developments have created a new face for the city of Iwamizawa. These facilities have been designed and constructed based on the winning entry submitted by Workvisions Co., Ltd. to the Iwamizawa Station building architectural design competition (which received a total of 376 entries), held in 2004 as the JR Group's first attempt at a nationwide open design contest.

The fourth Iwamizawa Station Building required a strong drive toward urban renewal, surpassing the framework of construction alone. The reborn station building is a stage for communicating to the young, who will be responsible for the city of the future, memories of Iwamizawa and for getting a new vision of the future of the Iwamizawa. Urban redevelopment will start from the station. The true value of this facility is in the way it unearths the positive points of the area and will lead to future development while revitalizing the connections between people. The fourth Iwamizawa Station Building is only the beginning of this process.

This design demonstrates a revolutionary high level of quality never before seen in a JR station building. While maintaining simple, clean spaces suited to Hokkaido, it does not feel cold but in fact has a warm feel. The public participated proactively in the planning process, as embodied in the imprinted bricks used in the building. Also, the glass façade employing old rails, aggressively employing memories of the land as a kind of sacred ground of the railroad, is skillful. The fact that today the completed building is loved by many members of the public who interact with the station space is perhaps the best demonstration that this is a good design.