{"id":7700,"date":"2026-05-08T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angesfinanciers.org\/?p=7700"},"modified":"2026-05-08T15:06:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T15:06:23","slug":"yokohama-international-port-terminal-first-major-parametric-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.angesfinanciers.org\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/yokohama-international-port-terminal-first-major-parametric-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Yokohama International Port Terminal “first major” parametric building"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Yokohama<\/div>\n

Continuing our parametricism series<\/a>, we look at the futuristic Yokohama International Port Terminal designed by Foreign Office Architects<\/a>, which was one of the first high-profile parametric<\/a> buildings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Opened in 2002, Yokohama International Port Terminal was designed by Foreign Office Architects (FOA) at a time when computational design was gaining increasing prominence.<\/p>\n

\"Yokohama
Yokohama International Port Terminal was designed by FOA. Photo by Satoru Mishima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The project was the first building designed by FOA, which was led by architects Farshid Moussavi<\/a> and Alejandro Zaera-Polo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Dezeen, Moussavi described the project as a “manifesto” that combined what they had learned about architecture with how digital tools could be used within the design process.<\/p>\n

“[It was a] manifesto of what we believed,” she said. “Everything seemed new because we were dealing with things that we hadn’t been taught \u2013 it’s almost like everything we were taught was being redefined.”<\/p>\n

\"Ferry
It was one of the first major buildings designed using digital tools. Photo by Satoru Mishima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The project was one of the first major buildings where computational tools were instrumental to the design process, leading Patrik Schumacher<\/a>, who coined the term parametricism, to call it the first “mature piece” of parametric architecture.<\/p>\n

“The first mature piece, which also got built, was FOA’s Yokohama ferry terminal,” he told Dezeen. “It was the first major project built in the style.”<\/p>\n

However, Moussavi distinguishes the parametric thinking that went into the design from the parametricism style that was later defined by Schumacher.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s about parametric thinking rather than parametricism as a style, even though parametricism has parametric thinking within it,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Yokohama
The building was designed as “a landscape”. Photo by Satoru Mishima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moussavi and Zaera-Polo won the extremely high-profile design contest, which, with 630 entries, was Japan’s largest architecture contest to date, while working as tutors at the Architectural Association<\/a> (AA) in London.<\/p>\n

“We were sitting in the bar of the AA and Shin Egashira \u2013 another tutor who was from Yokohama \u2013 came to us with a poster and said, ‘look, you should do this competition?'”<\/p>\n

“We thought, we better do it and we are going to do it based on what we want, rather than worry about winning \u2013 in our drawings, it didn’t really look like a building,” she continued.<\/p>\n

“And, so we submitted it and were shocked when we got shortlisted to the final three.”<\/p>\n

\"Ferry
Patrik Schumacher called the building the first “mature piece” of parametric architecture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

FOA’s design envisioned the 430-metre-long terminal building as a landscape, with a publicly accessible rooftop above the terminal facilities.<\/p>\n

According to Moussavi, this ideal was the primary driver for the form of building, with digital tools used to achieve it.<\/p>\n