co+labo radović    co+labo hosts Politecnico di Milano Professors Grecchi and Imperadori   

On Tuesday 24 November co+labo is organising the third and final in the series of  international guest lectures within our Theory of Architecture and Urban Design programme in 2015. Professors Manuela Grecchi and Marco Imperadori, the Vice Rector and the Rector's Representative for East and South East Asia at Politecnico di Milano. Marco Imperadori's laboratory and co+labo have started collaboration, which led to Strategic Partnership between our two universities in the fields relate to production of space.
Besides delivering this double lecture about PoliMi's important experiments with sustainable campus, and design innovations at the recently concluded EXPO2015 in Milano, Professors Grecchi and Imperadori will engage in discussions with Darko Radović and several other members of Smart Communities research cluster at Keio, in preparation for the forthcoming visit of our team to Politecnico.

co+labo radović intense co+labo November continues: Bologna+Nicosia+izakaya:snaps 7,8 

The visit from University of Cyprus brought to co+labo a very interesting lecture by professors Maria Hajosoteriou and Angela Kyracou-Petrou, and a series of site collaborative visits and discussions between co+labo students and their colleagues from Nicosia.Particularly intense was Tuesday. The day started by co+labo's Sano Satoshi's presentation of the recent projects from Eureka. 

Maria Hajosoteriou and Angela Petrou presented their research and research-led teaching, which focuses at mapping and ideas about alternative, better and (un)likely futures for some extremely complex - rich and beautiful, but at the same time intense and sad - urban situations in Cyprus.

Joint teams visited some of the co+labo research sites, exploring together places as diverse as Kichijoji, Musashi Kosugi, Jiyugaoka, Kitajukken Gawa, Kikuzaka, Isezakicho, and discussing those diverse urbanities of Tokyo there, on the sites ...

... and taking discussions to izakayas ...

and then back to co+labo and Keio's Yagami Camus:

... ending with discussions about future collaboration between Keio, co+laboradović and University of Cyprus, Nicosia and - a group photo.

co+labo radović Our BIMpact on the Future - Simone Garagnani's second lecture at co+labo

On Thursday 19 November, Simone Garagnani, Keio Top Global University scholar from the University of Bologna, a co+labo guest in 2015, will deliver his second lecture - Our BIMpact of the Future. 
Please come to this lecture and join the question time, which will focus at crucial dimensions of our current and future collaboration in the field of of capturing complex experiential spatial phenomena.

co+labo radović         another Theories of Architecture lecture in organisation of co+labo      

On Tuesday 17 November co+labo is organising a third in the series of Theory of Architecture and Urban Design guest lectures in 2015. This Tuesday, the guests are going to be Angela Kyriacou-Petrou and Maria Hajisoteriou from the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. If you are not far from Yagami Campus on Tuesday, please join us at this lecture. 

Maria and Angela are bringing along a group of their students, who will be over the next three days be working with co+labo on discovering and better understanding of some of the subtlest dimension of urban quality in some parts of Tokyo which are at our focus in 2015/16.    

co+labo radović    intense November: Gehl's+Bologna+Beirut@Keio+everything: snaps 4,5,6 

November and December co+labo pitch continues. On 12.11, an inspirational Luisa Bravo's lecture which brought forward often neglected political dimensions of the urban on which co+labo keenly insists,  was followed by research presentations of co+labo associates (Jessica Pineda, UNU), PhD (Paula Jaen, Vedrana Ikalović and Marco Capitanio) and Masters students Roxane Czarnobroda and Tomotake Miyagaki) and rich discussion.

On Wednesday, Simone Garagnani and Luisa Bravo have been taken to the sites of some of co+labo research projects - Kitajukken (Simone, Luisa, Sato, Vedrana, Ito, Yamaguchi-san/Mitsukura Lab) ..

... and Kikuzaka (Simone, Luisa, Davisi, Darko, Vedrana, Marco, Sato, Ito, Vitor, Yamaguchi-san) ...

co+labo radović intense November: Gehl's+Bologna+Beirut@Keio+all@izakaya: snaps 1,2,3       Traditionally, November and December at co+labo are the months of intensive research. Over those two months, various co+labo activities conducted over the calendar and academic year need to be wrapped up and presented, and new reserach and design-reserach projects conceptualised and initiated. These days, co+laboradović hosts simultanrously a number of regular co+labo accomplices, friends and associates from Tokyo and distinguished international visitors, who are helping us think and act better. Separate blog entries present some of those efforts, such as lectures by our Top Global University visiting academic Simone Garagnani (University of Bologna), Luisa Bravo (Lebanese American University), David Sim (Gehl Architects, Copenhagen) and his team. Their combined presence and contributions prove that we are trying to live what we preach and explore - intensity; urban, architectural, intellectual.

co+labo students with David Sim, Scott Przibella and Malin Nilsson (Gehl Architects, Copenhagen) during the fieldwork at several central locations in Tokyo, trying to feel the pulse of the city and to identify where our combined knowledges and experiences could make difference (with Roxane exploring the alternative ways to use public space)

Simone Garagnani's first lecture at Keio University's ... and the follow-up co+labo  izakaya discussion

guided visits to some of the sites in Tokyo at which co+labo students are doing their research and design-reserach investigations  

co+labo radović       co+labo intense November continues with a research seminar                   

On 12 November, co+labo activities continue with a research seminar, which focuses at our current PhD projects and Masters Theses which are due 2016, but which are pushing forward some of our key research challenges, such as dealing with coordination of measurable and non-measurable, numerical and textual expressions of spatial quality, and our underlining ethos of combined environmental and cultural sustainability.

As always, if you are close to Yagami Campus on Thursday, 13.11 at 14.00, feel free to join co+labo discussions. One of co+labo educational agendas is to advance critical thinking and polemological atmosphere.

co+labo radović  special guest lecture by CitySpaceArchitecture's Luisa Bravo@co+labo                                      

On 12 November co+labo is organising a special lecture by Luisa Bravo, an academic, Charter member and President of City Space Architecture, the non-profit cultural association from Bologna. As a multidisciplinary research platform, CSA involves more than one hundred affiliated members all over the world and - Darko is the Honorary Member.
Luisa also coordinates MaPS. Mastering Public Space, a collaborative research network on cities and urbanity, Pop-up City, a photography research project on instant urbanity and Urban Visions. Beyond the Ideal City, a cinematography competition for short films - all promoted and supported by City Space Architecture.

co+labo radović    co+labo organises Theories of Architetcure lecture by Simone Garagnani                                   

On Tuesday 10 November co+labo is organising a second the series of Theory of Architecture and Urban Design guest lectures in semester 2 2015. The guest will be Simone Garagnani, an academic from the University of Bologna who joins Keio and co+labo as one of the invited, Top Global University scholars. Professor Garagnani will spend two weeks at co+labo, working with Darko and co+labo research group at advancing current projects and designing opportunities for further research collaboration.

If you are not far from Yagami Campus on Tuesday, please join us in welcoming Simone and enjoy his first lecture at Keio.

co+labo radović     Asian Urban Ordinaries - Mn'M follow-up at Re-Do Conference in Århus   

In November 2013, Mn'M - Measuring the non-Measurable, the most ambitious research project hosted by co+labo so far, has ended with definition of several  follow-up research themes, to be followed and advanced by small groups of Mn'M members. One of those  Mn'M threads followed the theme of Asian Urban Ordinaries. Professor Davisi Boontharm, the coordinator of that group  and its core members (Darko Radović, Heide Imai, Milica Mimonović and Issarathumnoon Wimonrart) have presented the results of their work at Re-Do Conference On Sustainability and Culture’s Role in Sustainable Futures, organised (28.10 ‐ 31.10 2015) in Denmark by Århus University and Århus 2017.
The panel focused at urban places and practices of Tokyo and Bangkok, emphasising the importance of banal, everyday dimensions of urban life for definition multiple identities of those Asian urbanities. The presented papers, Requalification of urban bazar (Boontharm), Ordinary place identity (Muminović), Ordinary Spaces - taking back streets, alleys and other everyday niches (Imai), Ordinary spaces: reuse for creative activities (Issarathumnoon) and Places of/for stability in the times of flows and eddies (Radović) have attracted a sizeable audience and generated good discussion. The core team will work at the proposal for special issue of research magazine devoted to this interesting theme, to be edited by Davisi.

In response to some of the discussions at Re-Do, Darko focused and the necessity to define  and contextualise "new ordinary" and core issues of cultural sustainability - authenticity and identity. In order to set polemological atmosphere and, ala de Certeau, help "force theory to recognise its limits", he presented the perennial co+labo theme, the importance of ethics in work with/about/as the Other. This post brings several slides from that impromptu presentation.

co+labo radović            Anatomy of Islands exhibition, with co+labo works, in Paris              

Anatomy of Islands exhibition, which summarises the work produced for and during the first three Symposia and design-reserach Workshops (2012-14) at the Adriatic island of Vis , opens on 17 November in Paris, at the University Paris - Val de Seine. co+labo participated in this fascinating event since its beginning, advancing our research in quality of spatial experiences; alternative, culturally sustainable (tourism) development patterns and, most recently, Smart Islands, and contributing to thinking about the future of Vis, and other beautiful, endangered environments.

Over the years, co+labo was joined in Vis by Kengo Kuma Laboratory (University of Tokyo, which took part in all Anatomy Symposia and workshops conducted so far), Keio academics (Professors Mitsukura, Mita, Kobayashi), colleagues (Kazuyo Sejima, David Sim, Jose Puppim de Oliveira, Tetsuo Kondo) and others.

co+labo friends, f you happen to be in Paris anytime 17-27.11.2015 - visit our exhibition and let us know how was it.