co+labo radović    Davisi Boontharm's lecture about the pleasures of drawing at co+labo     
Our guest lecture series continues on Tuesday, 14 May with a talk by a co+labo associate and regular contributor, Professor Davisi Boontharm (Meiji University), in which she will be presenting some of the latest in her research into

the qualities of the urban which reach far beyond measurable phenomena, which include the ultimate quality—the quality of life. Regardless if they are extraordinary, such as beauty, or simple, ordinary experiences, such as everyday life, those qualities are notoriously difficult to capture and communicate. Davisi argues that, if we want to communicate the most precious characteristics of place, artistic sensibility needs complement the established methods.

This presentation will consists of selected explorations and attempts to communicate personal insights. Those experiments include diverse sketching and drawing methods, challenging the dominant notion of ‘mapping’ as ‘infographics’, mere visual representation of data. It seeks ways of capturing and communicating, presenting and representing the non-measurable dimensions of place through the variously combined visual and textual exegeses.

The processes of drawing and writing need to be seen as primarily bodily experiences where the pleasure and desire are always present, and they should never be denied. Even more than that, these subjective sensations and their expressions need to be strategically included, and their implementation in urban empirical research encouraged.

Davisi's lecture will be followed with presentation by recent co+labo and Politecnico di Milano graduate  
 and ... Akitaka Suzuki's seminar Experiences and Thoughts on my Design Process     

Aki-san will talk about his experiences during Double Degree study at Keio and Politecnico di Milano, as well as his working experience at Miralles Tagliabue EMBT in Barcelona, as an architectural intern. That will be an introspection, using several examples to summarise how such international, cross-cultural and multi disciplinary experiences affected his own approach to design. 

co+labo radović      Ray Lucas back at co+labo, with a seminar on embodied urbanism         

Exactly one year after his first visit to co+labo in May last year, Professor Ray Lucas is back. In parallel to his fieldwork, the new phase in an ongoing investigation of the festivals in Tokyo, Ray will deliver a research seminar at co+labo and take part in our PhD research-in-progress day. By focusing at the concepts of embodied urbanism and the architecture of movement, his seminar directly contributes to our key project - Comprehensive Design Workshop and efforts towards making Keio Architecture.

co+labo radović   co+labo's graduate explains the importance of study abroad experience 

Current issue of AIJ - Architectural Institute of Japan magazine, focusing at the importance of studies abroad for education and architectural and urban design in Japan, features an essay by co+labo's graduate Sotaro Miyatake. In 2015, Miyatake-san has undergone an intensive internship at Gehl in Copenhagen (where Darko is a member of the Team of Urban Experts). He emphasises how his work was closely related to an overall experience of being in the city, where casual walking in the streets, discussions with colleagues in the office, talking with the locals, and much more, intertwined into an exciting and useful synthesis - thanks to an emphasis on fieldwork and conviviality of everyday life at Gehl office.

With this Miyatake-san continues to contribute to the quality of discourse on architecture and urban design in Japan. That is directly related to one of the key educational aims of co+labo radović - to educate not only competent designers, architects, urbanists, engineers, but to also nurture young intellectuals, able, educated and brave enough to enter critical discussions in the public arena.

co+labo radović    Ishikawa Hajime adds to KA Comprehensive Design Workshop briefings  

The major Keio Architecture project, Comprehensive Design Workshop, which is coordinated from co+labo radović continued with an exciting lecture, City Read on the Map by Hajime Ishikawa, a Landscape Architect and Professor at Keio's Graduate School of Media and Governance, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies. 

co+labo first collaborated with Ishikawa-sensei during our major research project Measuring the non-Measurable, when he contributed an inspirational lecture and essay to the Mn'M book Tokyo dérive: In Search of Urban Intensities. We are looking forward to continuing collaboration within the frameworks of Comprehensive Design Workshop and our much desired Keio Architecture.

co+labo radović   ... Akitaka Suzuki has received a Double Degree@Politecnico di Milano  

co+labo congratulates our Akitaka Suzuki on successful completion of his Double Degree at Politecnico di Milano. Aki-san has, thus, become the first ever Keio University student of architecture and urban design to receive an international Double Degree. His success confirms the potential of rich collaborative links between the two universities, strategic partners in the fields of production of space.  
(below: Aki-san, second from the left, with Professor Gabriele Masera+Keio's/Politecnico's Yamashita Shohei, Luca Sironi, Andrea Bonaiti and ... a bottle of champagne)

Another two co+labo students, Magome and Yamashita, are currently doing their Double Degree with Politecnico, and short-term exchange of both staff and students is under way. Suzuki-san gave a great contribution to our efforts to advance those valuable links. 

co+labo radović    Leonardo Chiesi - on Public Space from People's Perspective@co+labo  

Exactly one year after his previous visit to co+labo Leonardo Chiesi is again with us - in what became regular and rich collaboration. This time, his lecture and seminar will be part of Comprehensive Design Workshop, which was announced on 11 April Kengo Kuma's guest lecture.
In his first lecture, Leonardo focused at Design and Health, a topic related to the quality of space in general. His second lecture and seminar, entitled Investigating Public Space from People's Perspective: ideas and methods, connected social theory with practical tasks facing the Workshop. The lecture was followed by a visit to Keio Hiyoshi and Yagami Campuses, with our Seizu III and Studio B students and professors Darko Radović and Davisi Boontharm.
Leonardo Chiesi is an Associate Professor at University of Florence and a Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley. He specializes in ambiental and territorial sociology, which he teaches at the School of Architecture, University of Florence. His research introduces social methods into investigations of quality of architecture and planning, and has been involved in a number of architectural design and city planning projects, expanding an interest in the subjects of local identity, community processes and participation methods. Chiesi wrote books on the construction of scientific discourse (Retorica nella scienza, 2009) and on the relationship between social sciences, architecture and planning (Il doppio spazio dell’architettura. Ricerca sociologica e progettazione, 2010).

co+labo radović    Kengo Kuma opens Keio Architecture Comprehensive Design Workshop 

co+labo is central to organisation of the new, exciting design-research project, a Comprehensive Design Workshop for the Athletic and Recreational Facilities of the Hiyoshi, Shimoda, and Yagami Campuses. In the period April 2018-July 2019 the Workshop, which will be bringing together a number of Keio Architecture and associated laboratories, addressing hypothetical spatial transformations of sports, recreation and wellbeing facilities in the area where three Keio Campuses are located, which consists of complex, diverse interlocking urban, community and university spaces and practices. The project will include numerous design studios and research projects.
Commensurate to the magnitude and importance of Design Workshop was its opening. On Wednesday 11 April, the Workshop was opened by Kengo Kuma's lecture Design and Engineering. Celebrated architect and professor at the University of Tokyo has started his academic career at Keio and, in 2009, co+labo radović was established proudly building upon the tradition of Keio Kuma Lab.
The event at Keio Hiyoshi Campus included an official launch of Keio Architecture, the first book that brings together best of students works produced during the previous two years, 2016-17 (see below). The volume was entirely produced and edited by students of Keio Architecture, and is marked by their desire to help establish a discrete course under such name.
The guest speaker and the book was introduced by Kohei Itoh, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, and Darko Radović, a leader of Comprehensive Design Workshop.

co+labo radović    Professor Vladimir Lojanica opens 2018 guest lecture series @ co+labo   

The first invited guest lecturer in the new school year at co+labo is Vladimir Lojanica, a distinguished practising architect, Professor and Head of Department of Architecture at the University of Belgrade. The lecture and research seminar were illustrated by the latest of Vladimir's projects, Rajićeva shopping centre located at the very urban core of Belgrade. While fulfilling all the commercial requirements, the project does not succumb to commercialism. With fine urbanist sensibility, the Complex celebrates and enhances an extremely complex location, one of the key hubs of rich public life in the city.

co+labo radović               another competition award for a co+labo student team                   

Close to the end of the 2017-18 graduate design competitions season  we are glad to inform about another award which a co+labo team. The team was composed of three students from three generations - second and first Masters and final year undergraduate studies - Yamamori Hisamu (now working for Shimizu Corporation), Kobayashi Daisuke and Samejima Takuomi received recognition at the Circos International Architecture Competition held in Nagoya. 
Warm co+labo congratulations for both the collaborative way in which the work has been conducted and the award itself!
(below: panels by Samejima/left, Kobayashi/right and Samejima's presentation to the Jury/middle)