co+labo radović   success of co+labo members at an international architectural competition 

In 2017, Japan and Danmark celebrate 150th anniversary  of diplomatic relations. Various events organised to mark that anniversary include an International Architectural Competition Communication Beyond Words, the principal aims of which were to celebrate the work of young architects in the counties famous for excellence of design, and to help discover the latest ideas and the new, emerging generation. Two co+labo members took part in this competition and - they won! 
The Jury composed of young and already established designers Martin Lysholm Hjerl+Rosa Siri Lund (STED) and Miho Tominaga+Ito Takahito+Noritala Ishikawa (tomito architecture), have awarded 1st Prize to Sotaro Miyatake (who graduated from co+labo earlier this year; image below, left), and 2nd Prize to Daisuke Kobayashi (co+labo Masters student, in the team with Miyatake and Inoue-san; image below, right).

The competition works will be exhibited in Copenhagen, in the period 15-22.11.2017 at the Danish Association of Architects in Copenhagen (reception party 15.11), and   in Tokyo, 30.11-15.12.2017 at the Living Design Centre OZONE (reception party 30.11). 
Please join the party to see the works and congratulate the co+labo winners and other participants in this interesting competition.) 

co+labo radović    on co+labo double degree students in Barcelona, Milano and Stockholm    

Four co+labo Masters students are currently doing their double degree studies. After completing the course at Politecnico di Milano, Akitaka Suzuki is working as an intern at the Miralles-Tagliabue EMBT office in Barcelona, as a member of design development team for the Centre for Biodiversity in Reshau, Germany, in particular modifications of the competition-winning proposal (below), morphological studies, materialisation and definition of the strategic view-lines. 

Ayumu Magome has finished his first semester at Politecnico - with a winning scheme at the ABC's Sustainable Multidisciplinary Design Process Studio (below).

Shohei Yamashita, followed the steps of Aki-san and Ayumu-san. He is starting research into the relationship between morphology, typology and technology and trying to combine the demanding studies at Lecco with pleasures of life - by bringing in the co+labo's dérive technique and his own sensibility for investigation of urban secrets (below).

Mei Morimoto, also started her Double Degree in autumn semester - at KTH School of Architecture in Stockholm. Within the Sustainable Urban Planning and Design project she was a member of the team working on a strategy for development of Huddinge (south Stockholm; see below).

Besides that, Mei-san recently visited Copenhagen, to attend a very special lecture by Jan Gehl, with which the old co+labo friend celebrated his selection among the top ten most influential citizens of Copenhagen - ever! 
This blog will be bringing news about co+labo members abroad, as we receive them.

co+labo radović   co+labo's Bruno Taut exhibition+symposium hosted by XJTLU, Suzhou    

After Venice (Istituto Universitario di Architettura, IUAV 9.2016) and Tokyo (Keio, 4.2017), co+labo's exhibition Bruno Taut's Hyuga villa in Atami, Japan is now in beautiful Suzhou, as an inaugurating event in the Xian's Jiaotong Liverpool University - XJTLU attractive exhibition space (left). The exhibition will be open in the period 17 October - 3 November 2017. 
As on the previous two occasions, the Taut exhibition was accompanied by the West of Japan-East of Europe Symposium. The Symposium included the opening address by Pierre-Alain Crosset, Head of Architecture at XJTLU, and presentations by Paolo Scrivano of XTJLU, Marco Capitanio, co+labo PhD candidate, the initiator and spiritus movens behind the project, co+labo's Darko Radović, Dave Clough, photographer whose work is central to the exhibition, and Puay-peng Ho, Head of Architecture at National University of Singapore. Kengo Kuma, Professor of Architecture at University of Tokyo was also there - virtually, through conversation with Marco and Darko which was recorded in his office last year.

This exhibition and symposium move from one venue to the other, but the contents never get fully repeated. Following the co+labo way, encapsulated in the sign + in our logo, the West of Japan, East of Europe events evolve, perpetually getting richer by selected traces of the previous event on, by making as much as possible from every location in which they take place, and communicate that, new, additional,  + quality to the next occasion. The collateral benefits of this event are numerous. The most recent was recognition by the Royal Institute of British Architects, which will include one of Marco’s photos and a drawing by Marco in the 21st edition of famous  Fletcher’s World History of Architecture.
The next incarnation of this event is scheduled for Italy, where it is going to be hosted by our strategic partners, Politecnico di Milano.  

(a strip of slides from Darko's presentation)

co+labo radović   co+labo summer-autumn workshops+symposia programme completed 

With the "Anatomy of Islands" Symposium and Workshop, co+labo has completed an exceptionally rich and intense summer-autumn 2017 programme. At the glamorous Lastovo (see the photo of the workshop site below), our team was joined by Professor Mita Akira (Keio Architecture), Mirjana Milanovic (Chief Urban Designer at the City of Amsterdam), Tetsuo Kondo (Kondo Architects, Tokyo) and David Sim (Creative Director at Gehl, Copenhagen) thus making co+labo contribution to the workshop even stronger. Professor Masami Kobayashi (Head of I-AUD) joined Davisi Boontharm and their Meiji University students - and there was also Mikako Koike (University of Tokyo, Kuma Lab). 

A special nuance to the complex and enjoyable workshop come from the true bottom-up organisation of the event. co+labo participants of the Belgrade and Lastovo workshops are bringing back to Tokyo an extraordinary learning experience to discuss and share with others.
(more material follows) 

co+labo radović   co+labo September of international design workshops+symposia continues 

"The Anatomy of Islands" Symposium and Workshop, the events in which co+labo takes part since 2012, will start on 16 September, at the Adriatic island of Lastovo. The theme "In the Search for the Public"is of special importance for Japanese cities and central to co+labo and Darko's own ongoing research. Our team at the "Anatomy 2017" will be numerous, and include Riho Inagaki, Mayuko Mikogami, Yukie Takasu, Keitaro Onishi, Yumi Ishii, Yijia Wang, Shun Kato, Norimi Kinoshita, Masahito Motoyama, Takuomi Samejima and two co+labo Italians, Andrea Bonaiti and Luca Sironi, who have just completed their studies at Keio and are returning to Politecnico di Milano. 
Keio will be joined by the Meiji University (Davisi Boontharm Studio) and University of Tokyo (Kengo Kuma Lab) teams.

Learning the history of western urbanism first-hand, from the historic core of the city of Split, started immediately upon the arrival, by retracing some of the walks and dérive sessions from the  old (2011) co+labo project The Split Case, and on the beaches and in the cafes of the town.

 

co+labo radović co+labo September of international design workshops+symposia has started

co+labo radović participated an in international design-research workshop in Belgrade, Serbia (Faculty of Architecture in the period 31.8 – 10.9.2017). Our team Yamashita Shohei, Kato Shun, Kinoshita Norimi and Motoyama Masahito joined forty students and professors from the participating six universities from Serbia, Italy and Japan (the  University of Belgrade, Faculty of Architecture, Serbia, La Sapienza University, Faculty of Architecture, Rome, University of Camerino, Faculty of Architecture, Ascoli Piceno, Italy, University of Sassari, Department for Architecture, Design and Urbanism, Alghero, Italy, Meiji University, Boontharm Studio and Keio University, co+labo).

As Professor Zoran Djukanović, the Organiser of this event, explained that “the Workshop and Symposium “Belgrade in the Plural” is oriented to urban research and urban design research of cultural and urban diversity in the contemporary city, inside the frame of the mainstream urban development tendencies: responsible, sustainable, smart and creative community, based on participation based and good urban design. The Symposium offers keynote lectures by each of the professors, presentations by external experts and debates. The parallel programme offers lectures by all visiting professors."

The teams worked in six groups, with carefully balanced cultural difference and skills. During the final presentation,  a Jury of visiting lecturers and experts have selected the most successful project. Yamashita-san was a co+labo member of the winning team, thus having the best farewell to Milano, where he starts his Double Degree at Politecnico ( 頑張ってください, Shohei-san!).

Professor Djukanović will be a Visiting Professor at co+labo in November this year. His foundational text for the Belgrade in the Plural workshop has been published in the July-August issue of Domus Magazine. You can find that essay (in, we hope, sufficiently good resolution) below.

co+labo radović        about co+labo+Keio Architecture@EAAE Conference in Bordeaux        

On 31 August, Darko delivered a key-note address to the Conference of European Architectural Education Association, held in Bordeaux. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of EAAE, the focus of the Conference was on teaching and research activities that European schools developed with their partners beyond Europe's borders.

This invitation was in recognition of Darko's experience and research in that field, with initiative coming from the École nationale supérieure d'architecture et de paysage de Bordeaux, with whom he collaborated in an exciting research into architectural and urban design education Bangkok-Melbourne-Bordeaux BMB (2003-5), the results of which were published as Cross-cultural Urban Design, global or local practice (Routledge).
Darko’s talk to the most illustrious of academic audiences in the field of architectural education started by referring to, and reflecting upon some of his own experiences of immersion into diverse teaching and learning practices in the fields of production of space. A special emphasis was on Japan and his rare, internal perspectives of the Japanese academia. As the first foreigner professor of architecture (Keio) and urbanism (Tokyo) ever at the two oldest universities in the country, over the last ten years Darko could not only observe, but also get involved and contribute to the arguably unique ways of thinking and making architecture in Japan. Those experiences deny routine, and demand constant rethinking of the fundamentals of the subject thought and investigated - and co+labo and Keio Architecture were at the very centre of presentation.The talk was deliberately polemological, crafted in hope to, in de Certeau's way, “force theory to recognise its own limits”.
The main aim of the address was to acknowledge and celebrate diverse, situated knowledges, and too point at risks inherent to any foreign intervention - even when careful and best intended.

(illustrations in this post: strips of slides form Darko's presentation; photos by EAAE)