Ryoko Iwase, a research assistant at co+labo, has won an invited competition for young architects

The competition, which was supported by Asahi Glass Company, asked the participants to respond to the theme of “Glass architecture and the variety of light”. Ryoko-san used thin glass sheets, which are usually used for TV and mobile displays, to accentuate the relation of that subtle material with the light and wind conditions of the site. Her poetic, elegant winning proposal will be built at the AGC studio gallery in Ginza, and stay there for three months, in the season spring/summer 2014.

co+labo Barn House published in the major Thai design magazine art4d

getting close to the anniversary of the official opening ceremony of the co+labo Barn House at Meme Meadows in Taiki-cho, Hokkaido in November last year, a prominent Thai magazine art4d has published an article about our project, entitled To-gether - referring to one of its key points, the symbolic and existential co-habitation of humans and horses. In the meantime co+labo, supported by LIXIL Foundation, is researching the performance of the Barn House and, true to the concept of self-learning architecture, works on its incremental, perpetual improvements – exploring the possibility of an architecture which can (again, as architecture used to) get better, and do not decline with the passage of time (you can, occasionally, find updates about that at the Barn House blog: http://colabobarnhhouse.blogspot.com).

(in November this year, there will be another celebration at Meme Meadows – opening of the Harvard GSD-designed Horizon House, the next-door neighbour of the Barn House)

co+labo @ the second architectural and urban design international Symposium workshop The Anatomy of an Island, at Vis, Croatia 

Public presentation of student proposals 5 October 2013 was the closing event of this year's Anatomy of an island symposium and workshop, held at the island Vis. Students from Japan (Keio University and University of Tokyo), Slovenia (University of Ljubljana), Italy (Palermo University) and Croatia (University of Zagreb), who under the supervision of professors Tadej Glažar (Ljubljana), Neno Kezić (Split), Davisi Boontharm (Melbourne), Darko Radović (co+labo, Tokyo) and Ko Nakamura (Kuma Laboratory, Tokyo), presented their design-research proposals for some of the key locations in the island towns of Komiža and Vis.

Excellent organisation by local organisation Lavurat za poja was managed by Boško Budisavljević and Eta Martinis. The solo-exhibition of drawings of Vis by Davisi Boontharm was very well received, with a promise of the new one, at Anatomija otoka 2014.

co+labo teamSasamura Yoshihiro, Kozono Saki, Amano Ryoto, Miyatake Sotaro, Ueno Wakataro and Darko Radović

Milica Muminović has completed her PhD at co+labo in record time. She received the highest academic degree from Professor Tojiro Aoyama, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology

Milica’s Thesis, Advanced Assemblage Analysis of Built Environment and Persistence of the Identity of Place in Yanesen contributes to the methods of urban analysis based on assemblage theory by increasing their capacity to address changes in built environment and relating them to the persistences of identity of place. The methodology proposed and tested in this work approaches place in its complexity and analyses the dynamics of change of a concrete place as a complex whole.
Milica stays at co+labo, in the capacity of Research Assistant at our major research project – Measuring the non-Measurable.

graphical design workshop with Boris Kuk - towards co+labo language

in September 2O13, co+labo hosts a series of workshop sessions with Mr Boris Kuk, a renowned graphical designer from Zagreb, Croatia. The workshops are part of IKI research project Measuring the non-Mesurable, with an aim to help development of an innovative visual language capable to capture the subtlest qualities of the urban. The work focuses on data collected during the co+labo  Asia dèrive sessions in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore and recent urban research pavilion in Kuhonbutsugawa Street, Jiyugaoka.

co+labo+J Jiyugaoka urban research pavilion final DAY 4 - 23 July 2013  

co+labo data collection, conducted in our +J urban research pavilion in Kuhonbutsugawa Street, Jiyugaoka was completed on Tuesday afternoon. The pavilion was dismantled just before a downpour. A very loud thunder was a proper background for the finale of a very successful exercise. 

Over the four days, co+labo team of research assistants and students have greeted a huge number of visitors and assisted them in providing the Mn'M project with invaluable data for further investigations.The project was successful due to a truly tremendous response by a number of to us known and unknown individuals and organisations, some of which appear at the snapshots +J pavilion on this blog. We were proud to see how our modest tent became a meeting hub, accepted as an organic part of an already mature urban culture of Kuhonbutsugawa promenade. 

Very soon, co+labo will start preparing the autumn data collection session.  We will use the experiences from the last four days to set up an even better +J pavilion in October

co+labo wholeheartedly thanks the residents and institutions of Jiyugaoka and all visitors of the +J pavilion who helped this research exercise become an urban event - and succeed.

co+labo+J Jiyugaoka urban research pavilion DAY 3 22 July 2013 

co+labo+J Jiyugaoka urban research pavilion DAY 2 21 July 2013