co+laboradović     co+labo gathered in Harajuku, for bōnenkai, 忘年会 - end of the year party   

co+labo members, good friends, good nabe prepared by the new members of our laboratory, some good Radović vine from the Adriatic peninsula of Pelješac, Croatia, stories about our undertakings in 2014 and discussion of  the exciting plans for 2015 ... and, it was great!

co+laboradović         we  wish  you  all  the  best   +   let's  continue  to  co+labo  in  2O15 !       

co+laboradović  two seminars at co+labo: Leonardo Chiesi on Double Space of Architecture  

On 9 and 12 December Professor Leonardo Chiesi, an urban sociologist from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence, conducted two seminars with co+labo research students, giving a great expert contribution to our efforts for better understanding of architectural and urban spaces and activities as manifestations of urban social condition. 

The key points of Leonardo's book Double Space of Architecture provided fruitful basis for rich discussion of co+labo undergraduate, Masters and PhD Theses in progress. On both days, discussions had to be continued in more informal chats, over the coffee at La Poire. This visit ads to the solid basis of collaboration between Keio and UniFi in the fields of architecture and urbanism, which started with contribution of Professor Raffaele Paloscia and his team to our major reserach project Measuring the non-Measurable (2011-14).  

 

co+laboradović   co+labo Barn House at the Italian Radio 24, interview with Prof. Imperadori 

An interesting, "exotic" reference to co+labo project at Memu Meadows: Professor Marco Imperadori from Politecnico di Milano spoke about our Barn House, Memu Meadows and LIXIL International Competition in a live interview at one of the most important broadcasters in Italy, Radio 24. You can listen the whole interview (of course, in Italian language) by clicking +.

co+laboradović   Professor Leonardo Chiesi from the Faculty of Architecture,  University of Florence UniFi: an architectural and urban sociology workshop at co+labo Radović  

As part of its broader efforts to advance socio-cultural qualities of urban and architectural design and production of space, co+labo organises a lecture and workshop by Professor Leonardo Chiesi, of Dipartimento di Architettura DIDA, of the Università degli Studi Firenze.

co+laboradović   co+labo lecture: a dialogue Sano+ Meijo on public-private interface   

Within Darko's Theories of Architecture and Urban Design class, Sano Satoshi (Eureka) and Meijo Toshiki (KKAA) addressed one of co+labo key themes, through discussion of some of their latest projects across the variety of architectural and urban design scales.

co+laboradović   On Sustainable - lecture by Professor Imperadori from Politecnico di Milano 

On Friday, 28 November 2015, in organisation of co+labo Radović, Professor Marco Imperadori, will deliver a lecture On Sustainable Architecture. Professor Imperadori teaches architecture at one of the key Keio strategic partner universities, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture, Building and Construction - ABC. As a teacher, researcher and designer, he focuses on highly energy-efficient buildings, structure / envelope building systems and sustainability in general. With Valentina Gallotti, Marco Imperadori is the Principal of Atelier 2, a Milano-based design studio. He is currently the Rector’s Delegate for the Far East of Politecnico di Milano.

The lecture will be held within Advanced Sustainable Architecture and Urban Design programme, and the speaker will be introduced by Darko Radović.

co+laboradović  opening of  UC Berkeley building, co+labo exhibition and discussion of the theme for the 5th LIXIL International Student Competition in 2015 @ Memu Meadows 

The winning project at the 4th LIXIL International Student Competition, the UC Berkeley Nest We Grow, has been officially opened at the ceremony at Memu Meadows. Their building, a shelter for storing, preparation and popularisation of the locally made agricultural products - The House of Food, for Food - has been briefly introduced on the site by eloquent winning team members (Hsui-Wi Chang, Hsin Yu Chen, Yan Xin Huang, and Baxter Smith), their mentor (Professor Dana Buntrock) and the 2014 Jury members, Professors Kengo Kuma and Tomonari Yashiro. 

Presentations have then moved to the LIXIL Center for Research of Environmental Technologies, with detailed explanation of the process of construction of the Nest We Grow, and an update by co+labo Barn House team, which has covered the history of the project, the research done since its opening and ideas about future advancement. 
As planned, the Barn House is gradually becoming transformed into a learning environment, a house in which the students and young researchers learn by immersion into its unique spaces, and a house which itself learns", undergoes transformations required and inspired by the realities of life. co+labo presentation was supported by an exhibition, which has been opened in the Barn House for the day (and scrutinised by watchful eyes of the Memu Meadows beautiful horses, the radical Other which this project puts at the centre of experience and diverse investigations).

The presentations and discussions were attended by the representatives of Taiki-cho community, professors, students from Japan, US and France, representatives of LIXIL Corporation, LIXIL Foundation, media and Shinkenchiku-sha.

The day was completed by discussion of the draft outline for the next LIXIL International University Architectural Competition, which will bring together Yale University (US), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), ETSA Madrid (Spain), Istanbul Technical University (Turkey), Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), The Oslo School of Architecture and Design (Norway), Tokyo University of Agriculture, ENSA Paris La Villette (France), Tokyo Institute of Technology - and several more. The challenge will be to help short-term visitors of Memu Meadows encounter and find beauty in the harsh Hokkaido weather.

co+laboradović   one day untill the opening of  UC Berkeley building and co+labo exhibition at the  LIXIL Center for  Research of Environmental Technologies @ Memu Meadows 

21 November at Memu Meadows was a busy day, marked by intensive preparations for the opening ceremony of the new LIXIL project, the Nest We Grow which was designed by University of California Berkeley. The Nest joins previous winners of the prestigious International Student Competition for the Next Generation Sustainable House - Waseda, Keio/co+labo Radović and Harvard. Local residents and high school students had special previews, along with the representatives of LIXIL Foundation and students from Kengo Kuma and Darko Radović laboratories, who have also helped Memu Meadows staff to organise all details. 
co+labo team, which provided images that accompany this report, has set up special exhibition which explains the Barn House as the venue for continuing experimentations and improvements, with particular emphasis on subtle, qualitative nuances of life with nature. 

The event on 22 November starts at 14.30, with the Press Review. That will be followed by presentations of the competition Jury, Berkeley and Keio/co+labo teams. The event, which is co-organised by LIXIL Foundation and Shinekchiku-sha, will be concluded by discussion about the next LIXIL Competition in 2015.

co+laboradović   a ceremony at Memu Meadows on Hokkaido:  the opening of the new LIXIL  Foundation University California Berkley building + co+labo Barn House exhibition 

On 22 November 2014, at Memu Meadows in Taiki-cho, Hokkaido, LIXIL Foundation will be opening their new, Nest We Grow project. Design was based on the University of California, Berkeley winning entry at the 4th LIXIL International Student Competition in 2014 (under the guidance of Professor Dana Buntrock). 

A group of co+labo radović students is already at Memu Mewadows, setting up the exhibition about the past, present and future of our own Barn House, the winner of the 2012 competition (photos below).The co+labo Barn House exhibition will not only show some of the original material about design of the Barn House, but also provide samples of the ongoing research of its performance and ideas about the possible evolution of the Barn House over the years to come, but also collect feedback and ideas from the participants and visitors of the big LIXIL event. Over the next two days, this blog will bring brief updates about the preparations, the opening ceremony of the Nest and glimpses from our exhibition. 

   

co+laboradović   @ co+labo - Dr Mirjana Lozanovska on Kenzo Tange 

On 4 November 2014 co+labo radović hosted a lecture by Dr Mirjana Lozanovska, an Australian academic who teaches design and history/theory at the Melbourne's Deakin University. Her research interests, which cover the impact of migration, identity and architecture, and the destruction and the reinvention of the city, include a true passion for Kenzo Tange and his project for the reconstruction of Skopje, Yugoslavia (Macedonia) after the devastating earthquake in 1963. Mirjana's lecture, delivered within Darko's regular Theories of Architecture and Urban Design class, was followed by discussion which engaged a number of students and researchers and practitioners associated with co+labo.

co+laboradović   co+labo Barn House project (and more) at the Symposium  

On 1 November 2014, at the Innovation Symposium organised by the University of Tokyo's Kuma Laboratory, Darko will present the co+labo Barn House, an experimental project at Memu Meadows, Hokkaido. The presentation will reach beyond common energy balance sheets and reach the philosophy behind the concept which brings the resident researchers and horses under the same roof, explaining not only how but, more importantly, why such relationship matters.

co+laboradović  a welcome dinner for new international co+labo members 

In October 2014, four new members joined co+labo radović. A post Doctoral Fellow Jessica Pineda-Zumaran (United Nations University IAS), Keio PhD student Vedrana Ikalović, exchange PhD student Paula Jaén Capáros (ETSA Madrid) and a Double Masters Degree student Roxane Czarnobroda (ENS Lille) are adding to our cultural and disciplinary diversity, and are contributing to the strategy of an intellectually strong research laboratory. A modest izakaya dinner at one of the restaurants in Hiyoshi, joined by co+labo associates Prof Davisi Boontharm, Dr Akiyoshi Inasaka and Arch. Tetsuo Kondo, provided another opportunity to help the newcomers from Peru, Bosnia, Spain and France feel welcome and get integrated fast. Jessica's, Vedrana's and Paula's research profiles are at out Post Doc/PhD Projects page.

co+laboradović  on 28 November, Jan Gehl will talk at the Placemaking Symposium in Tokyo

co+labo strategic partner Gehl Architects, Copenhagen announces an upcoming talk in Tokyo by their founder, Jan Gehl. On 28 November, Jan will address the Placemaking Symposium, which is organised and hosted by the Japan’s Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transportation. The Symposium focuses at improving the quality of urban life and ways to make cities for people.  

In the meantime, only days after joining co+labo team at Island of Vis, David Sim, a Creative Director of Gehl Architects,  will be again with us, at Keio Yagami Campus.

co+laboradović  co+labo at the 3rd Anatomy of the Islands Symposium and Workshop - part 2

And ... on 27 September, the Anatomy of the Islands Workshop at the Island of Vis was concluded with public presentation. The presentation was introduced by a spiritus movens of the Anatomy Mr Boško Budisavljević, and attended by a number of the residents of local villages and towns of Vis and Komiža, including the Major of Vis, Mr Ivo Radica. A variety of interesting ideas across scales, ranging from strategic territorialist gestures to the smallest of elements which could make a big difference, for both those who lived and visit the spaces of inner island has been presented - including  a quirky and provocative Vine Pipeline (see that, and more, below). co+labo plans to participate in the forth Symposium and Workshop  which are scheduled for the same time, starting mid september 2015. 

Our sincere congratulations for an excellent organisation go to Boško, Eta, Manuela and many others whose efforts provided an infrastructure for success.

(more information and some really good images from Vis you can find at the Vis-à-vis blog.)

co+laboradović  co+labo at the 3rd Anatomy of the Islands Symposium and Workshop@Vis

Almost all co+labo students and several associates are taking part in the Symposium and design-reserach Workshop Anatomy of Islands which are, for the third time being held at the Croatian island of Vis (17-27.9.2014). This year, the focus is on sustainable development and the issues related to possible self-sufficiency of the villages which are facing the threats generated by banality of rapid globalisation and overdevelopment, which parallel seemingly unstoppable processes of ageing and depopulation. This year, the team of Keio academics (Darko Radović, Davisi Boontharm) was strengthened by an active participation of David Sim (Creative Director in our strategic partner, Gehl Architects, Copenhagen). Structured as a follow-up of the research Symposium, the workshop includes a number of formal and informal lectures, interaction with public and various stakeholders and addresses the multiplicity of scales, ranging from draft development strategies of the island, design of villages and architectural (re)design of selected buildings, to hands-on building - through active involvement in a stone dry-wall reconstruction workshop. Besides Keio, the team of mentors include professors Laurence Feveile (ENSA Paris-Val de Seine), Tadej Glažar (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Ana Jeinić and Anne Oberreitter (TU Graz), Neno Kezić (University of Split, Croatia) and generous support from Boško Budisavljević and Eta Martinis (Anatomija otoka) and LAG Škoji (Manuela Antičević).

co+laboradović   our Sano Satoshi and his EUREKA receive another prestigeous award 

Only two months after receiving the Architectural Review High Commendation (see our 1.7.2014 blog entry, below), co+labo's member since 2009 Sano Satoshi and his Eureka office have received another prestigious award. This time, the excellence of their Dragon Court Village was recognised by the Japanese Institute of Architects. The JIA Jury, chaired by Jun Igarashi, has awarded Eureka the Tokai Architectural Grand Prize for Housing Projects. Congratulations!

co+labo is also proud to announce that, after several years of active and successful participation in various laboratory and SD architecture subjects, Sano-san was appointed a Visiting Professorship at Keio University, System Design Engineering. In the forthcoming semester he will teach one of our architectural design studios.

co+laboradovićthe results of the co+labo part in the reserach project Measuring the non-Measurable was presented in Stabat Mater Lecture Hall at Archiginnasio of the University of Bologna - one of the places which best illustrate the field of our investigations - spatial quality which reaches beyond our abilities to (re)present   

In late June, Darko Radović gave a key-note address at the International Conference Past, Present and Future of Public Space. The Conference was organised by City Space Architecture and masterfully chaired and managed by Luisa Bravo and her team at the University of Bologna. The paper entitled Public-private Interface? The challenges from Japan, Asia and the times of Globalisation (see an abstract and illustrations below), was delivered in the amazing space of the Stabat Mater Hall, the illustrious history of which still resonates with the sounds of Gioacchino Rossini's music, initially performed in that very room in 1842, conducted by none else but Gaetano Donizzetti. And, that is only one, "small" segment in the history of lectures, debates and performances which are enacted in that space since 1563, when the Archiginnasio was open to public. (Measure that!)

The invitation to present co+labo research in that shrine of higher education, along with rich discussions that followed the key-note provided strong inspiration to persist with our investigations of the most precious spatial qualities across cultures and scales.

Abstract

This paper presents fragments of an investigation into the concept of urbanity across cultural boundaries. It is deliberately 'polemological' as, in de Certeau's way, it aims to open and offer to discussion a set of contentious issues, all in hope to “force theory to recognise its own limits”.

In the first segment, it presents an investigation of spatial relationships between public and private realms in Tokyo, focusing at the questions arising from the fact that Japanese language does not have a word equivalent to the term “public” - which indicates the absence of, or at least an unusual situation with the concept of public. That opens a number of themes linked to globalisation, the processes of which usually take many concepts, including that of public sphere, as universal. The ensuing set of themes make the second segment of the paper, exposing the conundrum of (dis)appearance of public, or equally dramatically that of private quality in a globalised world.

The third part of the paper does not aim conclude, but to open the discussion by presenting some of the methodological propositions, results and current attempts towards exploration of public/private interface conducted within the major research project Measuring the non-Measurable (Mn’M) at Keio University, Tokyo (2011-14). The outcomes of the project suggest that, as in life sciences, urban research needs new frameworks capable to embrace the non-reductive, methodologically inclusive study of whole systems. That means a much-needed radical departure from current reductionist orthodoxies and includes recognition and multiplication of subjectivities, an appreciation of the fullness of human multisensory experience, and celebration of diversity and difference generated by concrete social and physical contexts of each urban situation. The presentation is illustrated with examples of innovative methods tested within Mn’M which, as in Kenzo Tange’s definition of good design, sought dialectical synthesis of tradition and anti-traditionalism (eg. Debordean dérive and the latest in EEG “visualizations of thought and thinking”
).

Several slides from Darko's presentation: