the biggest annual event hosted by co+labo, the Mn'M Symposium, will be held at the Keio Yagami and Hiyoshi Campuses 15-17 November 2013

Third Mn’M 2O13 Symposium will summarise the key points of the work conducted over the last three years and look at urban futures, with a noble aim which is embedded in the very nature of design – to imagine and to contribute to making of a better world. The participants of the Symposium will deliver short, efficient, pointed papers based on their research and/or design-research practice, and posters - with clear position, sharp focus at key Mn’M themes, and an emphasis on opening new questions and offering them to the Symposium. The accepted papers and posters present the emerging ways of thinking, making and living the urban in a rapidly changing world. Mn’M Symposium 2O13 will operate through plenary sessions and intensive follow-up group discussions, which will seek to abolish disciplinary group divisions and reach an interdisciplinary synthesis. Verbal presentations and posters will provide the starting points and a background of referential case studies, which will facilitate concrete discussions and innovative, cross-disciplinary thinking. The Symposium will end with, at least, the seeds of thinking that could help further advance Mn’M agendas or, at best, with workable coalitions of ideas – concrete proposals how to advance thinking, making and living better cities.
The participants include: Aleksandar Ivančić, Apiradee Kasemsook, Ben Highmore, Christian Dimmer, Darko Radović, David Sim, Davisi Boontharm, Heide Imai, Hidetaka Hontani, Hiromoto Oka, Hendrik Tieben, Inasaka Akiyoshi, Jorge Almazán, Lorenzo Tripodi, Marco Imperadori, Masa Inakage, Masaki Usami, Milica Muminovic, Nuttinee Karnchanaporn, Oriol Clos, Rafael Balboa, Ryoko Iwase, Satoshi Honda, Satoshi Sano, Seiichiro Katsura, Sidh Sintusingha, Takahiro Yakoh, Takashi Maeno, Takumi Saikawa, Tomoyuki Furutani, Tamao Hashimoto, Tetsuo Kondo, Toshiki Meijo, Zoran Djukanović, Yasue Mitsukura, Yasushi Ikeda, Yui Issarathumnoon

Ken Akatsuka, a co+labo M2 student, has won first prize at the Central Glass International Architectural Design Competition

The Central Glass Competition is an institution with long tradition. Since 1966, many of the CGS awardees became well-established and recognised architects, starting from with the very first winner, Kan Izue (later the 10^th president of the Japanese Architects Association). The juries regularly include the internationally most prestigious Japanese architects, such as Riken Yamamoto, Taro Ashihara, Hiroshi Naito, Kengo Kuma.

In response to the 48th CGS theme of Bringing Urban Environment into Architecture, Akatsuka-san and Inoue Gaku (from Almazán Laboratory) co-authored Urban Radio Caravan, a scheme which proposes construction of a temporary radio station, which would be moving from city to city in the northern part of Africa. The station would absorb urban complexities of its context and contribute to development of stronger communities in the cities which are facing numerous problems caused by rapid urbanisation. 

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