co+labo radović  a series of conferences featuring co+labo continues - Barcelona, Tokyo ... 

After Amsterdam and Belgrade, a demanding and exciting conferences and symposia at which Darko presents fragments of co+labo ways and some of our ideas and projects continues. On 22 November, Darko and Davisi have, via Skype,

joined 22 academics, artists, designers, architects from Australia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Norway and Japan invited to  participate in the 22@Barcelona Sympolab: 100 Questions Symposium Mapping the Unmappable. Darko's contribution focused on the findings of co+labo's original (2011-14) and ongoing Mn'M- Measuring the non-Measurable project, and its rebellious evolution towards -

"not measuring the measurable". Davisi presented her Mn'M works, recent efforts and reached back, to the very origins of her original and innovative sketch and script research method - years ago, in Barcelona. 

On 23 November, it was Culture, Society, Culture Symposium at Meiji University, which was chaired by Professors Masami Kobayashi and Davisi Boontharm. Besides Meiji University's Kobayashi, Boontharm, Manuel Tardits and Hiroyuki Sasaki, invited presenters were professors Shunya Yoshimi (University of Tokyo), Mark Mulligan (visiting at Hosei University), and architect Teddy Koffman.

A snapshot of Davisi's and Darko's shorter and fastest ever visit to Barcelona (photo Christina Liadeli).

co+labo radović    a beautiful reflective table designed by co+labo's Suzuki and Kobayashi  

As announced at this blog in August, the award winning piece of urban furniture designed by co+labo's Graduate Akitaka Suzuki and our final year Masters student Daisuke Kobayashi, was built in Minato Mirai, at the prestigious location in front of the Kenzo Tange's Yokohama Museum. 
Before the opening, their PhD sempai, Vedrana Ikalovic has captured the puzzling beauty of urban table (left) which both reflects, and invites reflections of the passes by. The visits of other co+labo members and more photos of a truly photogenic and excitingly interactive installation started coming in.
Aki-san and Daisuke-san has summarised their experience: "After the competition, due to the (both expected and unexpected) limitation of tools, materials and budget, we had to modify our scheme several times.

Of course, there were inevitable compromises, but we learnt that those challenges were

good opportunities to rethink the essence of what we were trying to achieve and refine the final scheme in a more effective way. 

Seeing the table in use after the completion, we were happy to see that, as proposed, the people enjoy different perspectives and reflections of Yokohama and, at the same time we were surprised at how people (especially kids), with a single unusual table, discover THEIR own, various ways to interact with space.

Going through the full process, we can conclude that this project gave us a real experience and notions on a theme: thinking, making and living public space, which we, as co+labo, have pursued for years." 

Well done, Aki-san, Daisuke-san!

co+labo radović co+labo way presented@70th anniversary of the Urban Planning Institute 

The key-note lectures by Darko Radović, Davisi Boontharm (Meiji IAUD and co+labo) and Brigitte Jilka (City of Vienna Director of Planning, Development and Construction) opened the International Conference which marked the venerable 70th anniversary of the Urban Planning Institute of Belgrade. The celebratory character of the occasion has no diminished the importance and an activist edge embedded in the theme - The Future of Institutional Planning. 

The opening talks, which were introduced by Ms Vesna Tahov (Director of the Institute) and Dr Zaklina Gligorijević (an Expert Advisor of the Institute, and spiritus movens of the Conference), were followed by three high-powered panels, and a rich discussion with an remarkably knowledgeable and experienced audience. It was not insignificant that the Conference was held in one of the  buildings of (recently) celebrated Yugoslav brutalist architecture (currently@MoMa). The space where discussions of now marginalised experts with proven track record in thinking and making that city provided a meaningful contrast with the outdoor spaces of Belgrade, where the global neoliberal development paradigm rules.   

co+labo radović forthcoming: Marco Capitanio's Final PhD review and  public defence     

Marco Capitanio, a PhD candidate at co+labo radović has completed his PhD project entitled: Liveability in the Age of Shrinkage: Urban Design Assessment of Morphology and Management in Tokyo’s Peripheral Areas. Final presentation and public defence of his Thesis, in front of an interdisciplinary panel consisting of Professors Nakajima Naoto (University of Tokyo), Mita Akira, Kobayashi Hiroto and Darko Radović/supervisor (all Keio University) was scheduled for 26 November. 

A brief summary: Demographic changes in the Japanese society will inevitably restructure Tokyo’s spatial organization in the coming decades: population loss will manifest itself unevenly and be most dramatic in peripheral areas, challenging established notions of quality of life. Several scholars have tackled this issue from a geographical or planning perspective. Nonetheless, the question of how liveability at the urban design scale could be addressed, remains an open one. This research focuses on Tokyo’s peripheral areas, aiming to evaluate, in a comparative manner, urban design factors affecting liveability at the neighborhood/city scale in an upcoming age of shrinkage, based on the analysis of three case studies (Kunitachi, Tama New Town, Yukarigaoka). After providing a tailored definition of liveability, emphasis is put on six factors relating to morphology (density/compactness, diversity of uses, walkability, green/water space) and to urban management (machizukuri/participation, local character). The research is limited to the Greater Tokyo Area because of its uniqueness within the Japanese urban development. Our findings have clarified the need to focus urban design and policy-making on compactness, rather than on density; the importance of a spatial qualitative assessment of the mix of uses, otherwise deceiving from a purely quantitative planning standpoint; the possibility to maintain liveability in low-density settlements with the implementation of ad hoc accessibility strategies; the positive and negative effects of different types of green spaces; the importance of both cooperative and confrontational participatory practices toward co-production; the need for peripheral areas to o er a lifestyle alternative to that of the city center.

Beside presenting a workable and applicative toolkit for urban designers, we provide new data and information about our case studies for the bene t of local municipalities and interest groups, proposing an exemplary “shrinkage masterplan”. Moreover, by means of comparison, tactics to cope with shrinkage can be transferred to and tested in other areas around Japan and be a reference for numerous East Asian cities about to face, in the near future, their own age of shrinkage.Keywords:
liveability, shrinkage, Tokyo’s peripheral areas, urban morphology, urban management 

Details: 26 Nov. 2018 (Mon.)
, 14:00 ~ 16:00
, Keio University Yagami Campus Graduate School of Science and Technology 14th Bldg. (Sosokan), 5F, DS53/54


co+labo radović Baaibuurt project advances our collaboration with the City of Amsterdam 

The collaboration between co+labo and City of Amsterdam's Planning and Sustainability Department, which started in May 2017 with an international Tokyo-Amsterdam Symposium held at Keio Hiyoshi Campus, and continued with Darko's key-note address at the inauguration of the Sluisbuurt project in July 2018, has advanced further - with design-research workshop which focused at spatial strategies for Baaibuurt area. 

Our collaboration was further enriched by an inclusion of Professor Davisi Boontharm's Masters studio, with participation of her students from Meiji University and assistance of the Meiji Lecturer Ko Nakamura. The contributors from Amsterdam include the Deputy Director of Department of Planning and Sustainability Peter Klomp, the City of Amsterdam urbanists Mirjana Milanovic, Sharmilee Jayakkumaran, Huig Burger, and academics Zef Hemel (Amsterdam Economic Board), John Tielman (InHolland) and .. more.

co+labo radović  co+labo PhD candidate Ivan Filipović presented at research  colloquium   

Keio University Space Design Group, to co+labo radović belongs, has introduced a new PhD venue for discussing research in progress. After Sano Satoshi's successful introduction of his topic in October, Ivan Filipović presented his theme, which is currently defined as: Soft Power Architecture: Roles of Architectural Spaces in Production and Communication of Officially Endorsed Images of National Identity. Ivan explains how, "when talking about Soft Power, reference is made to a concept by Joseph S. Nye, who coined the term, stating that, in the most basic terms, is defined as the ability to attract, with attraction often leading to acquiescence. In terms of resources, soft power resources are the assets that produce such attraction but cannot always be measured or have tangible physical manifestations. 

Main goal and overreaching ambition of the thesis is to classify resources and measure their effects via the production of architectural spaces and their subsequent impact on the built environment. Architecture is a system of construction of circumstances, that does not exist independently from the contextual circumstances. Architecture, in fact, does not capture, but rather constructs and legitimizes every societal reality and ideology.
Identities are difficult to be examined through abstract viewpoints, because every society is developing and constantly changing/shifting, transforming and restructuring relations between its parts. Therefore, identities must be viewed as processes, not as a condition, as interaction and interrelation between identities and context. In order to be understood, identities ought to be examined in a concrete cultural, social and political context."