05 June 2014

co+laboradović   co+labo Spring Urban Research ... cupboard 
In the period 23-25 May 2014, co+labo Urban Research Pavilion was back in Kuhonbutsugawa Street. This time it was conceptualised as an urban cupboard. When open, our urban cupboard consisted of two tatami-sized volumes of shelves and foldable benches which, as a true treasure cupboard, reflected the richness and diversity of the Green Promenade, exhibiting the objects borrowed from supportive shops and cafes along the street. When locked overnight, the cupboards were transformed into a perfect cube, a blackboard which invited the passers-by to leave their marks and comment on urban quality of this subtle suburb of Tokyo.
As co+labo students and researchers were conducting their regular, various data-collection research exercises, they attracted and engaged more citizens than ever before. The playful cupboard attracted a number of children, who took its blackboard surfaces as a serious challenge and offered a lot of ... feedback, and "design proposals" (while their parents were dutifully filling in our research questionnaires). 
The activities of the Spring Pavilion were coordinated with the Symposium On Thinking, Making and Living Public Space … towards Tokyo 2O2O (held at Keio University on 24 May), included working celebration of the new, collaborative research and design-research unit co-established by Gehl Architects, Copenhagen and co+labo Radović, Tokyo; and distributed a number of copies of 都市の質を探して:自由が丘、九品仏川緑道百景, In theSearch of Urban Quality: 100 maps of Kuhonbutsugawa Street, Jiyugaoka, new book which documents some of the results of the work conducted in Jiyugaoka by co+labo Radović so far.
co+labo Spring Urban Research Pavilion has, as on two previous occasions, been generously supported by local Jiyugaoka community and LIXIL Foundation. 

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