co+labo radović      Studio presentations announce forthcoming Keio Architecture Finale ...  

Keio Architecture Masters Studio A and undergraduate Almazán, Kishimoto and Radović Studio presentations have reminded us all that preparations for the big CDW events, Comprehensive Design Workshop Exhibition and Symposium are getting close. Projects developed within these studios will be exhibited and enter competition for one of the newly established Keio Architecture Awards. Keio Architecture Competitions will provide additional contribution to the forthcoming celebrations of the 80th anniversary of Science and Technology at Keio University and mark another step closer to reaching the idea(l) of a discrete International Graduate Keio Architecture Programme. colaboradovic will keep you posted on developments ...

co+labo radović      co+labo = Darko at Up-Close and Liveable Conference in Amsterdam     

Invited by the City of Amsterdam, Darko had an opportunity to speak at Up-Close and Liveable Conference, which was part of a much larger annual event We Make the City Festival (17-23 June 2019). These events bring together huge number of participants in the processes of thinking, making and living that amazing city of Amsterdam, along with several invited international speakers. 
Darko's main contribution was to the sessions Access to Housing - focusing at (re)development strategies for new and existing neighbourhoods, and the vibrant City Index discussion, which addressed both the excitement and dilemmas associated with application of such tools in city planning. But, the most interesting and inspirational part of the Festival was in a variety of interactions between  participants from all walks of life provided by this truly public forum which was exploring what matters in (urban) life - a set of co+labo themes par excellence.

co+labo radović   Oris Magazine published an extensive interview with Darko, on co+labo etc.

A new issue (No. 119) of the prominent European bimonthly and bilingual architectural magazine Oris, published in Zagreb, Croatia since 1998, brings an extensive interview with Darko Radović. Under the title Encounters With Diversities, the interview, which was conducted by architectural historian Maroje Mrduljaš (University of Zagreb) and Professor Tadej Glažar (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), covers a broad range of themes from Darko's professional and academic career in Europe, Australia and Asia - which justifies the title of the piece. The significant part of the interview, which was conducted after Darko's lecture and Davisi Boontharm's exhibition at the Oris House of Architecture, dealt with activities of and around co+labo radović, their active base since 2009. Besides Darko's discussion with Maroje and Tadej, it is worth checking the well-known quality of Oris, and it's well-deserved fame of the European ... shineknchiku. 

co+labo radović    Darko's Panegyric to Kengo Kuma, recipient of the Purple Medal of Honour

In response to the announcement that Kengo Kuma received one of the highest recognitions of excellence in Japan, the Purple Medal of Honour for 2019, I was asked to write a very brief appraisal of his many achievements. It was my great pleasure to write the following text (which can also be found at the University of Tokyo web site). Warm co+labo congratulations!

DR

A Panegyric for Kengo Kuma: 褒章 - The Purple Ribbon Medal of Honour Laureate

Architectural and urban design projects of Kengo Kuma made him one of the most prominent architects of the last decades of the 20^th and first decades of the 21^st century. The body of his work, spread across the world, speaks on its own, both in terms of quality and quantity of the achievement. Here I focus on his equally significant contribution to education, seen as both production and dissemination of knowledge. 

     George Bernard Shaw’s witty phrase “Those who can, do; those who can't, teach”, caused both laughter and abuse. But it also points at an unfortunate, deeply entrenched and damaging reality – unsustainable separation of theory and practice, production of ideas and, in the case of architecture, production of space. The most desirable and the most difficult way out from that unproductive binary opposition would be dialectical synthesis between the two. In my opinion, precisely that quality defines the less recognised, unique ability of the professor and architect Kengo Kuma – his capacity of creative synthesis, in whichever communication medium, spatial scale, or physical material he operates. His intellect seamlessly combines sensuality and knowledge, cultural rootedness and innovation, architecture as pragmatic production of space and architecture as a dream. That translates into the passion of thinking, teaching and making architecture.

   Holistic thinking does not recognise specialist compartmentalisation and fragmentation of knowledge. It does not fit into any of predefined frameworks, but keeps on imagining, defining and producing new modes of communication. Professor Kengo Kuma delivers his excellent lectures at the University of Tokyo and globally; he passionately teaches design studios and ventures into various academic fieldwork and workshop exercises. But his educational impact is far from limited to those, exciting but still specifically academic modes of production, sharing and advancement of knowledge. His realised projects embody and communicate the above mentioned passion, brave innovation and restlessness of mind which seeks and finds expressions of the core quality of architecture, a desire to, in some way, create better world. Kuma’s projects educate across the levels of his many skills and strengths – via contextual explorations, spatial innovations, brave exercises in materiality, sensuality, eloquently imagined and constructed challenges to both traditionalism and anti-traditionalism. Elaboration of any of those themes would demand a long essay, which would still not communicate the main educational message of his work – that of the power of real architectural space, as simultaneously conceived, perceived and lived, the importance of being there.

co+labo radović    new co+labo research seminar: Professor Peter Rush from Melbourne Uni  

co+labo hosted another provocative, truly interdisciplinary encounter. Peter Rush came to a Keio Architecture laboratory and our Faculty of Science and Technology from his Institute for International Law and Humanities at the Melbourne School of University with results of his research which focuses on urban space. 

co+labo radović        co+labo research seminar: Professor Andy Karvonen, KTH Stockholm 

Continuing with our fast, weekly pace of co+labo research seminars, on Tuesday 28 May we hosted Professor Andy Karvonen, a Director of Doctoral studies at Urban and Regional Programme of KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Andy presented his latest work on urban laboratories and cities as permanent experiments. The ensuing discussion covered a range of issues including that of research funding, triggered by question: how to truly innovate when the key sources of funding seek perpetuation of thinking within the dominant paradigm, rather than asking new questions.

 

co+labo radović    Comprehensive Design Workshop 2O19 accelerates with design Studios  

Masters Design Studio, which is this year coordinated by Darko Radović and delivered by Sano Satoshi, Chiba Motoo and Komatsu Katsuhito was first to present interim results of the work which will be presented in July, as part of a major CDW - Comprehensive Design Workshop Exhibition. The Exhibition, a coordinated Symposium and some special events under the joint title Sports, Bodies and Spaces: everyday life and major events, will be a part of celebrations of the 80th anniversary of our Faculty of Science and Technology.  The details will be announced at this blog soon.
The discussion panel of the projects being done in Masters Design Studio consisted of Studio teachers, Professors Radović, Kishimoto and Muminović (University of Canberra). Similar interim presentation of SD Graduation Studio projects will be conducted later this week. 

co+labo radović   two seminars@co+labo: Milica Muminović+Ray Lucas talk on their research

As every year, spring is the time when diversity and intensity of activities at co+labo reach their peak, the time of the semester to get inspired and to inspire, leading towards production in the fields of design, design-research and research. Tuesday 14 May marked one of the peaks in an already intensive programme, with two guest lecturers presenting their own work and entering discussion how to make what they do useful in and for various co+labo projects. 
The first of two research seminars was delivered by Milica Muminović, Programme Director for Built Environment of at the University of Canberra, Australia and first co+labo PhD graduate. In Assembling: mapping, diagramming Milica used some her latest work top open discussion with her kohai, current co+labo students and associates (below left). 
Professor Ray Lucas of the University of Manchester was for the third year in a row visiting co+labo. This time his erudite presentation (below right) focused on the key parts of his latest book Drawing Parallels: knowledge and production of axonometric, isometric and oblique drawings. 
Both lectures were followed by rich discussions. Ray's book - highly recommended!

co+labo radović    co+labo+dbStudio Bangkok architecture+urban design Fieldwork took off  

Following introductory sessions at Keio and Meiji Universities, co+laboradović+dbStudio have started their Bangkok Fieldwork with a joint on-site briefing session. Over the next three days and nights, students will be exploring some of the most fascinating places and practices of this complex city, in search for urban intensities of Bangkok and the essence of their own, individual architectural positions and expression. co+labo blog will be bringing regular updates.

 

co+labo radović        Harada Yuki's presentation continues co+labo research lecture series    

Following the Golden Week holidays, co+labo+Keio Architecturelecture series continues on 15 May with Harada Yuki's Ode to the Time, what is the time in architecture?, an address to the students enrolled in our Masters (Studio A) and SD Graduation Design (Seizu III) students.

co+labo radović    Masa Noguchi's lecture on near zero-energy housing@Keio Architecture  

co+labo and Ikaga Laboratory have joined forces in organising a guest lecture by Professor Masa Noguchi of the University of Melbourne's School of Design. This visit is an outcome of Darko's and Ikaga-sensei's recent trip to Melbourne a group of Keio undergraduates, during which they visited MSD. By coincidence, Masa-san now teaches within Environmental Design course, which Darko founded in Melbourne, at the then Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning in 1993.