—Haruki Murakami, Pinball, 1973

Combining the linear language of Kumamoto’s Kamitori arcade and the boxy building form along it, my project draws inspiration from Haruki Murakami’s short story Pinball, 1973, appropriating the trajectory of a pinball bouncing in a cantilevered box to derive a vertical playground for local residents and students.

Pinball, 1973 is a short story that is not so well-known to the masses compared to Murakami’s other works. With his obsession with the pinball machine from his college days, the protagonist embarks on a search for a specific type of pinball machine to dismiss the encompassing boredom and meaninglessness in his everyday life. After re-encountering with the machine he’d missed at a deserted poultry farm, he contentedly retreats back to his routine, completely cut off from the past.