co+labo radović  sustainable architecture series continues with Vuk Radović+Sano Satoshi  

Every year our Advanced Sustainable Architecture and Urban Design (aSAUD) Masters course focuses at some of the key issues investigated in and around co+labo radović. This year, the emphasis is on current trends which define residential Tokyo. The expert segment of aSAUD 2018 is delivered in two units: Vuk Radović, the co-founder of co+labo presented his research on the emergence of extra High-Residential High-Rise (xHRHR) buildings, while Sano Satoshi, co+labo technical secretary and research assistant, focused on Low-Rise High-Density developments in Tokyo.

That provides basis for students enrolled in aSAUD to develop and test their critical positions, based on environmental ethics and principles of environmentally and culturally responsible action - which is at the core of co+labo ethos.

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co+labo radović co+labo Guest Lecture by Professor Ronan Paddison, Glasgow University 

Ronan Paddison, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Glasgow visited co+labo, and delivered a guest lecture "Revisiting ‘The Rise and Rise of Culture-Led Urban Regeneration" within Darko's Masters Course on Advanced Sustainable Architecture and Urban Design - aSAUD. The emphasis was on how culture, in its different guises, has become a key trope through which cities are being regenerated, and how culture-led regeneration has become deeply connected with urban design. The discussion, which  concluded through viewing how public art can contribute to place-making, included invited Professors Davisi Boontharm (Meiji University) and Hiroshi Okano (Osaka City University). 

co+laboradović    co+labo Italian boys Andrea and Luca graduated at Politecnico di Milano    

As part of an established  exchange of students with Politecnico di Milano (Antonella Colistra, 2014; Silvia Spallina and Salvatore Nastasi, 2015; Enrico Sterle and Nicoló Panzeri, 2016), in 2017 Luca Sironi and Andrea Bonaiti (left and right on the picture with their colleague, Peir Paoli Mainetti) joined co+labo, to get involved in some of our regular activities, take part in Keio Architecture Masters Studio and (as the key component of PoliMi ABC-co+labo collaboration) to advance their research and design-research for Graduation Theses back at home. Andrea and Luca have successfully completed a typically rigorous Politecnico process and received their masters Degrees. Warm co+labo congratulations to two of the best, international Keio boys! 

Their AGRI+CULTURE was a project for an industrial area that influenced the urbanistic and economic growth of Casatenovo, a village in Brianza. The Master Thesis focused at development of an urban project for that area, with a special focus on the study of a new library for Casatenovo. The first part was developed at co+labo radović, starting from a comprehensive historic, economic, demographic and urban analysis which helped identify the requirements of local population. A functional program was organized and implemented in an urban masterplan, following an overall concept of agriculture, here based on the rich agricultural tradition of Casatenovo. The key building of that scheme is the library. The architectural project of the library was based on the analysis of local demands and then developed according to an integrated approach, taking into account the architectural, structural, lighting and energetic aspects. Luca, Andrea and their colleague, Pier Paoli Mainetti, Authors highlight the original shading system of the library, made of bricks, which is the main feature of the building, based on the local farmhouse shading system as an archetype. Every aspect of the project has been systematically developed with in-depth analysis and specific software simulations.
Their supervisor was  Professor Gabriele Masera, along with Prof. Marco Muscogiuri, Prof. Marco Pesenti, Prof. Darko Radović and Prof. Giulio Zani.

Luca is now continuing his studies, starting a PhD at EPFL École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne Phd programme, while Andrea returns to Tokyo to work at SANAA. (if you prefer, please visit a fantastic SANAA www site - here).

co+labo radović  co+labo presented our ways of thinking+making @Biennale Architettura   

Following an invitation from City, Space, Architecture organisation, co+labo radović had an opportunity to present how it operates and some of the products of our work an the most illustrious venues in the world of Architecture - Biennale di Venezia. The Symposium and Workshop entitled Past Present and Future of Public Space: Knowledge sharing toward implementation of the New Urban Agenda, which was chaired by Luisa Bravo, the Founder and President of City, Space, Architecture, included Darko's lecture on the ways in which the unique, foreigner-led architecture and urban design laboratory operates within the peculiar Japanese educational system (below), and a presentation by five co+labo Masters students - Magome Ayumu (currently Double Degree student at Politecnico di Milano), Mikogami Mayuko, Morimoto Mei currently Double Degree student at KTH Stockholm), Kobayashi Daisuke and Samejima Takuomi (at the bottom of this post). This interest in co+labo ways follows and expands upon discussions triggered by Darko's key-note address, which was delivered at the Congress of European Association for Architectural Education on Bordeaux in September 2017.

Besides Keio Architecture (co+labo), the participants included Meiji University (Boontharm Studio), Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of New York, Hunan University, IUAV University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Lodz University of Technology, Manchester School of Architecture, Politecnico di Milano, Pratt Institute, Shanghai University, Stanford University, Syracuse University in Florence, Tsinghua University, TU Vienna, Universidad Espírito Santo Ecuador, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, University of Auckland, University of Bologna, University of Cambridge, University College Cork, University of Florence, University of Nicosia and University of Palermo. 
co+labo activities at Biennale ended in the Dutch Pavilion, with our partners from the City of Amsterdam - the launch of their book "Body, Work, Leisure" and discussions about their theme, the future of Amsterdam (and, at the margins, our forthcoming, November workshop there).

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co+labo radović Temporal Communal Networks workshop at the Island of Lastovo 

Anatomy of Islands, which started with an intensive fieldwork (at the photo below, with Diana Magdić and Anna Jeinić taking the lead)...

... and intensive brainstorming sessions, which included an extraordinary, international and interdisciplinary team of mentors and students from Kuma Lab and co+labo radović (below, with Diana, but ... without Toshiki Hirano who is, with Satoshi Sano, central to the photo just below this one)...

... and equally robust discussions and design-research explorations was, according to all participants and observers, as successful as unusual. A true "mentors' workshop" helped elevate the discourse fast, thus facilitating both an efficient start and the quality of outcomes.

The Anatomy of Islands was concluded with an exhibition (introduced by Ana Jeinić, below). But, rather than further describing what has happened there, from here we let the photos taken by various participants and shared with our blog provide details about the process and the product of Lastovo 2018.

To be continued ... in September 2019. 

co+labo radović Temporal Communal Networks workshop started at the Island of Lastovo 

Focusing at the notion of common good, Anatomy of Islands 2018 workshop opens with a number of questions related to island community affiliations, the contents of common good, conditions under which it can be used and the best ways to act upon that. The islands make interesting places to address such themes. Due to their many limitations, island societies have always been associated with collaborative and flexible models of use of local resources, balanced with permanent and temporary migrations which require constant reconsideration and reconstruction of the concepts of community and common. Their firm physical boundary gets conditioned by softer, dynamic internal boundaries, which results in complex, fluid definitions of sites and networks. All of that is in the focus of this design-research workshop. The workshop operates in an interesting, innovative format, led by a strong international team of mentors of different cultural and expert profiles: Ana Jeinić (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Diana Magdić, Mariana Bucat (Croatia), Elisabeth Luggauer (Austria),  Toshiki Hirano, Satoshi Sano (Japan) and Saša Ostan (Slovenia). Students are from University of Tokyo (Kengo Kuma Laboratory) and Keio University, Tokyo (co+labo radović) - which participate in various design-research workshops along the Adriatic coast since 2011.

The Anatomy of Islands 2018 introductory lectures were delivered by Professors Nenad Starc,  Davisi Boontharm, Darko Radović and a geographer Sean Turner.

Those will be followed by additional lectures by some of the mentors - sociologist Diana Magdić, ethnographer Elisabeth Luggauer  and architects Satoshi Sano, Toshiki Hirano and Saša Ostan. 

co+labo students at Lastovo are Sanja Zonja, Amami Iwata, Jumpei Kawamoto, Shinichi Nishibori and Hiroki Shigemura.

co+labo radović  the new season of intensive co+labo international workshops has started 

This year co+labo continue its practice of contribution to carefully selected design and design-research workshops. In September 2018, co+labo members participated in several intensive events in Japan, the UK and at the Adriatic islands of Vis and Lastovo in Croatia. The grand finale will be at the Architecture Biennale in Venice. To begin with, just a brief note - those workshops do interrupt another important activity (see below) ... as before ...
co+labo undergraduates - Iwata Amami, Kawamoto Jumpei, Nishibori Shinichi and Shigemura Hiroki have arrived to the city of Split, for what has since 2011 become a regular, annual introduction to the beauty and challenges facing the original, Mediterranean urbanity, before heading towards Vis and a mini-Symposium aimed at setting the agenda for future Anatomy of Islands workshops, and more.  
Below - an impromptu lecture at the famous Peristil, the very place form which the Emperor Diocletian used to address his army and the people, and a ferry departure to Vis, against the backdrop of one of the most impressive urban vedutas.

co+labo radović New Issa - a World Centre for Island Life and Cultures mini-Symposium 1  
The Vis 2018 Symposium, was conceptualised as an heuristic, intellectual dérive into the future of islands in general. The original idea of the World Centre for Island Life and Cultures was introduced by the founder and intellectual leader of the Anatomy, Boško Budisavljević. Besides co+labo, Keio University Professors Darko Radović and Akira Mita, and Professor Davisi Boontharm (Meiji University), the participants of the mini-Symposium include staff and students from the Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana, L'ENSA Paris-Val de Seine and a number of independent contributors.
co+labo radović  co+labo students took part and awarded @ Ise Workshop in Mie, Japan  

Daisuke Kobayashi and Takuomi Samejima have completed participation in a week-long architectural workshop in Ise city in Mie prefecture which focused at designing and building a 3x3x3 meters big folly besides the famous Ise Shrine. co+labo students joined two groups, each of which was composed of five students from several Japanese Universities. With their folly, which was composed of two torii gates facing Geku and Naiku Shrines (above) Kobayashi-san's team has won the Second Prize. Congratulations to Daisuke-san and others (with a Diploma, on the photo below).

Samejima san’s team's folly, which took task to express anima, a Japanese spiritual word used for expressing the power of objects (see a fragment, below), has received very good comments and recognition.

co+labo radovićco+labo  @  Loughborough University Food+Wood Apple Store Workshop

From Ise, Takuomi Samejima was joined by Norimi Kinoshita at the Food+Wood Apple Store lu-arc summer school, which is being held at the Loughborough University Campus.

A very interesting project was initiated and organised by an old co+labo friend and associate, Dr Maytas Gutai and besides the host university and Keio participants include staff and students from Faculty of Architecture from the University of Belgrade and Kyushu University, School of Design.

In line with co+labo values, the invitation reminds how "architects are as much as builders of a communities than buildings, even if this aspect of our profession is often neglected in architecture education. The intention of the 1st lu-arc summer school is therefore to construct an apple store that will be more than a material and fabrication experiment but also a community based and enhancing design: a space that stays with us in campus after the workshop and engage with local community of the university and Loughborough. ...