co+laboradović  co+labo fieldwork with Gehl's, Urban Renaissance and Open_A in Kanda - 2 

And, on Friday 25.11. nice weather was back and co+labo pavilion, our popular urban research"cupboard", was rolled out to the streets of Kanda, and students got involved in further data collection by engaging the locals and the passers-by ... 

co+laboradović  co+labo fieldwork with Gehl's, Urban Renaissance and Open_A in Kanda - 1 

This week co+labo joined our strategic partner's Gehl from Copenhagen, in an urban research workshop in Kanda, Tokyo. As on a number of occasions before, co+labo students are involved in data collection and urban design exercises headed by our associate and Gehl's Creative Director David Sim, which aim to both improve the  quality of open spaces in that part of Tokyo and help raise general awareness about the importance of public space in urban life. This workshop is hosted and organised by Urban Renaissance Agency, and conducted in collaboration with Open-A Ltd. This is just an opening notice. After the initial two days and an interruption by Danish weather (snow in Tokyo on 24 November!), on Friday 25 November co+labo mobile research pavilion, our urban cupboard gets out to the streets of Kanda, to help David and the team achieve Gehl quality work - and even more than that. The updates will be posted soon.

P.S. co+labo's Associate Davisi Boontharm edited the Thai version of Jan Gehl's seminal book Cities for People, the publication of which coincided with his 80th birthday.

 幸せな誕生日 Jan!!

co+laboradović     Madrid>Tokyo architecture exhibition@Around the Corner Grain Building     

The Friday evening rain has not affected the opening of the Madrid>Tokyo exhibition of young Spanish architects (left), at Around the Corner Grain building, designed by co+labo's Sano Satoshi and his Eureka group. That building was conceptualised as space which would support the emergence of spontaneous activities and help generate richer streetlife in one of the Tokyo's typical, low-rise high-density residential areas. The spaces intended for appropriation and improvisation sheltered the visitors of the opening of Madrid>Tokyo and facilitated interaction - even in the far from favourable weather conditions. The exhibition will stay open until 11 November, mirroring a parallel event in Madrid, which presents the projects of a group of fine, young Japanese architects, including Sano-san and Eureka.

co+laboradović  co+labo@another exhibition - "Space In Community Service", in Komiža, Vis  

"Anatomy of Islands - centre for research and development" (Boško Budisavljević and the Anatomy team) and the Local Action Group  "Platforma Lissa" (Manuela Antičević and the LAG team) are opening another fine exhibition, to be held 1-11 November 2016, this time in the beautiful fisherman town of Komiža, at the Adriatic island of Vis (left). The exhibition features a selection of ideas produced within "Anatomy of Islands" workshops, which were conducted in the period 2012-16. As regularly reported at this blog, co+laboradović was one of the major contributors to the "Anatomy", facilitating participation of a number of international, particularly Japanese academics, professionals and students - including Darko Radović, Davisi Boontharm, Kengo Kuma, Kazuyo Sejima, Hiroto Kobayashi, Akira Mita, Yasue Mitsukura, Tetsuo Kondo, Satoshi Sano, Ko Nakamura.
The exhibition in Komiža presents ideas seeking implementation (including the only project completed so far - Keio University Japanese Tea Pavilion) thus continuing the efforts of Anatomy, LAG and other local organisations, institutions and individuals to translate creative energies generated within and around "Anatomy" into action and, eventually, space. 
The exhibition will be accompanied by a book, featuring all of the exhibited ideas.

co+laboradović   welcome to new co+labo international members - Abigail and François        

Mid-school year co+labo was enriched by two new international students, Abigail Quinlan (exchange from McGill University, Canada) and François Ricciardi (ULC Lacambre-Horta, Bruxelles). François and Abi were officially welcomed at one of the Hiyoshi izakaya-s.

co+laboradović       co+labo@the hands-on design+construction workshop in Inujima              

Three co+labo students, Miyagaki Tomo, Onishi Keitaro and Kobayashi Daisuke took part in an intensive joint Keio+Politecnico di Milano+Ochanomizu Womens’s University workshop at the island of Inujima. The hands-on involvement in transformation of the former sewing factory into a gallery was conducted by Sejima Kazuyo and SANAA staff members, Suo, Takaike and Huruya. Sejima-san guided a visit to her other projects at the island. co+labo group continues the journey to visit other Setouchi Triennale sites.

co+laboradović  Exhibition of 10 emerging architects Madrid>Tokyo - supported by co+labo  

On Friday, 28th October, from 16.30, we will celebrate the Opening of the exhibition '10 emerging architects madrid>tokyo' at Around the Corner Grain building, designed by Eureka. The exhibition, which was initiated and co-organised by the team which includes co+labo's Paula Jaén Caparrós and Sano Satoshi will stay open until 7th November at 2-11-11 Motobuto, Urawa-ku, Saitama-ken.

This original, mirroring exhibition presents twenty emerging architects. Ten young architecture studios from Madrid will be exhibit their work in Tokyo while, simultaneously, ten young up-and-coming Japanese offices from Tokyo will be presenting their projects in Madrid.

The opening of the event in Tokyo will also be a farewell to our Paula Jaén who, after spending two productive years at co+labo, continues her research of disassemble architecture at the UC Berkeley. As an excellent researcher, inspirational sempai, teacher and contributor to co+labo culture, Paula will be - irreplaceable. 

The Friday event will feature a talk by Marcelo Pardo Ruiz, one of the architects exhibiting there. Marcelo has recently won AAP - American Architecture Prize 2016, the selection for the Bienal Internacional de Arquitectura de Argentina  2016, and the Luis Mansilla National Prize in Madrid.

co+laboradović proudly supports this event.

co+laboradović     three new issues of co+labo magazine urbophilia      


co+labo has recently published three new issues of our irregular newsletter/magazine urbophilia. 

urbophilia 06 (editor Vedrana Ikalović, co+labo PhD student) focuses at the recent boom in construction of residential high-rise buildings in Tokyo. It brings together one hundred examples of extra high residential buildings which were built the period 1985-2015. The examples were compiled and analysed by undergraduate students of Theories of Architecture and Urban Design.  

urbophilia 07 (editor Marco Capitanio, co+labo PhD GESL student) entitled West of Japan, East of Europe focuses at the work of Bruno Taut and, in particular, his Villa Hyuga in Atami, Japan (1936). The magazine brings essays by Marco Capitanio and Darko Radvić and extracts from their discussion on Taut's work with Kengo Kuma, along with selected photos of Villa Hyuga by Dave Clough and a set of detailed technical drawings of that building by Marco Capitanio and co+labo students. This issue of urbophilia was inaugurated on 9 September 2016, as a catalogue of an exhibition on Taut at Università IUAV in Venice. 

urbophilia 08 (editor Davisi Boontharm, co+labo Associate), entitled inVISible, presents a series of watercolours by Davisi Boontharm, Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban design at Sophia University and Keio. These paintings are part of her visual explorations of spatial quality, an original Sketch and Script research method in which she combines standard methods of urban explorations with intuitive, artistic excursions into the subjective, subliminal findings. urbophilia 08 was inaugurated as a catalogue of the exhibition inVISible at the Vis Cultural Centre, on 15 September 2016.

All issues of urbophilia are available from co+laboradović by request. pdf versions will soon be available at this blog and co+labo web site: www.radovic.sd.keio.ac.jp             

co+laboradović   co+labo radović students won all three awards at Diploma Design Competition  

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It was great to be a co+labo member at Diploma Design Competition last Saturday. 

All six co+labo undergraduates were excellent. The Jury (Kobayashi Hiroto, Ito Hiroyuki, Sano Satsohi, Darko Radović, Kishimoto Tatsuya and Jorge Almázan) gave all three awards to co+labo students - Mikogami Mayuko (1), Yamashita Yohei (2), and Onishi Keitaro (3). Works of Kobayashi Daisuke, Takasu Yukie and Morimoto Mei was of similar quality, generating a lot of discussion and positive comments.

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co+labo was, again, at the epicentre of the event, with our students passionately debating, sometimes strongly opposed ideas. Their willingness and ability to debate, the capacity to formulate and defend ideas in a collegial, friendly, yet strong and uncompromising way was another quality of the last evenings event which we have never had before. That shook a deeply entrenched stereotype that “Japanese students never question authority”, showing that how continuing emphasis on critical thinking is bringing the results, which get well expressed in both design and in words.

Drawings by (top line, from the left) Mikogami Mayuko, Yamashita Yohei, Onishi Keitaro, (bottom line, from the left) Kobayashi Daisuke, Morimoto Mei, and Takasu Yukie.

co+laboradović        co+labo at the 5th Anatomy of Islands Symposium and Workshop    4      
co+laboradović  a Japanese Pavilion, Keio Kobayashi Lab+co+labo+partners present to Vis  

In 2015, Keio University team, as regular participants of the Anatomy of Islands events proposed to design and construct a Japanese Pavilion. The purpose of that small, multi-purpose building is to both mark the conclusion of the rich and inspirational series of Symposia and Workshops, and to express their gratitude to the people of Vis, the generous hosts of Anatomy and its participants.

The pavilion was designed in Tokyo, by Kobayashi Laboratory and Radović Laboratory co+labo, using an innovative structural system designed by Professor Hiroto Kobayashi and his team. The structural material was provided by our strategic partner, Politecnico di Milano, while the University of Ljubljana facilitated the cutting and production of structural elements in Slovenj Gradec. The town of Vis provided the site in a beautiful olive yard, the foundations and help with acquisition of the material for architectural finishes. The Pavilion was completed with support and encouragement of many individuals and institutions, to all of which we remain grateful.

The very location of this project, between the kindergarten, the school and the public park, as suggested by the Mayor Radica, sends a clear message: the Pavilion is there to provide a refined meeting place, the place to encounter and cherish cultural difference. Its fragile, elegant wooden structure enters a dialogue with the eternal beauty of the traditional stone environments of Vis. In a very Japanese way, this temporary enclosure will weather and change. Wood demands maintenance and care. It thus teaches manners, a particular kind of urbanity to which it responds with grace and generosity of refined, prolonged lasting, continuity and change.

Keio University team leaves the Pavilion to the town Vis, in hope that the children, other residents and visitors of Vis will love it and take care of it. The already popular Teahouse is going to last as as long as it is loved, taken care of, and maintained. In return, this building will remind everyone of the Anatomy of Islands in an active way, by facilitating communication, better understanding and development of an ability to live together.