co+labo radović forthcoming: Marco Capitanio's Final PhD review and  public defence     

Marco Capitanio, a PhD candidate at co+labo radović has completed his PhD project entitled: Liveability in the Age of Shrinkage: Urban Design Assessment of Morphology and Management in Tokyo’s Peripheral Areas. Final presentation and public defence of his Thesis, in front of an interdisciplinary panel consisting of Professors Nakajima Naoto (University of Tokyo), Mita Akira, Kobayashi Hiroto and Darko Radović/supervisor (all Keio University) was scheduled for 26 November. 

A brief summary: Demographic changes in the Japanese society will inevitably restructure Tokyo’s spatial organization in the coming decades: population loss will manifest itself unevenly and be most dramatic in peripheral areas, challenging established notions of quality of life. Several scholars have tackled this issue from a geographical or planning perspective. Nonetheless, the question of how liveability at the urban design scale could be addressed, remains an open one. This research focuses on Tokyo’s peripheral areas, aiming to evaluate, in a comparative manner, urban design factors affecting liveability at the neighborhood/city scale in an upcoming age of shrinkage, based on the analysis of three case studies (Kunitachi, Tama New Town, Yukarigaoka). After providing a tailored definition of liveability, emphasis is put on six factors relating to morphology (density/compactness, diversity of uses, walkability, green/water space) and to urban management (machizukuri/participation, local character). The research is limited to the Greater Tokyo Area because of its uniqueness within the Japanese urban development. Our findings have clarified the need to focus urban design and policy-making on compactness, rather than on density; the importance of a spatial qualitative assessment of the mix of uses, otherwise deceiving from a purely quantitative planning standpoint; the possibility to maintain liveability in low-density settlements with the implementation of ad hoc accessibility strategies; the positive and negative effects of different types of green spaces; the importance of both cooperative and confrontational participatory practices toward co-production; the need for peripheral areas to o er a lifestyle alternative to that of the city center.

Beside presenting a workable and applicative toolkit for urban designers, we provide new data and information about our case studies for the bene t of local municipalities and interest groups, proposing an exemplary “shrinkage masterplan”. Moreover, by means of comparison, tactics to cope with shrinkage can be transferred to and tested in other areas around Japan and be a reference for numerous East Asian cities about to face, in the near future, their own age of shrinkage.Keywords:
liveability, shrinkage, Tokyo’s peripheral areas, urban morphology, urban management 

Details: 26 Nov. 2018 (Mon.)
, 14:00 ~ 16:00
, Keio University Yagami Campus Graduate School of Science and Technology 14th Bldg. (Sosokan), 5F, DS53/54


co+labo radović Baaibuurt project advances our collaboration with the City of Amsterdam 

The collaboration between co+labo and City of Amsterdam's Planning and Sustainability Department, which started in May 2017 with an international Tokyo-Amsterdam Symposium held at Keio Hiyoshi Campus, and continued with Darko's key-note address at the inauguration of the Sluisbuurt project in July 2018, has advanced further - with design-research workshop which focused at spatial strategies for Baaibuurt area. 

Our collaboration was further enriched by an inclusion of Professor Davisi Boontharm's Masters studio, with participation of her students from Meiji University and assistance of the Meiji Lecturer Ko Nakamura. The contributors from Amsterdam include the Deputy Director of Department of Planning and Sustainability Peter Klomp, the City of Amsterdam urbanists Mirjana Milanovic, Sharmilee Jayakkumaran, Huig Burger, and academics Zef Hemel (Amsterdam Economic Board), John Tielman (InHolland) and .. more.

co+labo radović  co+labo PhD candidate Ivan Filipović presented at research  colloquium   

Keio University Space Design Group, to co+labo radović belongs, has introduced a new PhD venue for discussing research in progress. After Sano Satoshi's successful introduction of his topic in October, Ivan Filipović presented his theme, which is currently defined as: Soft Power Architecture: Roles of Architectural Spaces in Production and Communication of Officially Endorsed Images of National Identity. Ivan explains how, "when talking about Soft Power, reference is made to a concept by Joseph S. Nye, who coined the term, stating that, in the most basic terms, is defined as the ability to attract, with attraction often leading to acquiescence. In terms of resources, soft power resources are the assets that produce such attraction but cannot always be measured or have tangible physical manifestations. 

Main goal and overreaching ambition of the thesis is to classify resources and measure their effects via the production of architectural spaces and their subsequent impact on the built environment. Architecture is a system of construction of circumstances, that does not exist independently from the contextual circumstances. Architecture, in fact, does not capture, but rather constructs and legitimizes every societal reality and ideology.
Identities are difficult to be examined through abstract viewpoints, because every society is developing and constantly changing/shifting, transforming and restructuring relations between its parts. Therefore, identities must be viewed as processes, not as a condition, as interaction and interrelation between identities and context. In order to be understood, identities ought to be examined in a concrete cultural, social and political context."

co+labo radović  regular co+labo particatiopin SANAA workshop at the island of Inujima   

In response to what became a regular invitation from Kazuyo Sejima a couple of co+labo Masters students, Wuan Yang and our exchange student from Politecnico di Milano joined a larger group of students and staff from Polimi (above) and an inspirational cast of Japanese architects (with Renato, below) in an enjoyable and intensive workshop at Inujima. 

Renato summarises: "The entire workshop led to the opening ceremony of a new pavilion realized by the Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes, in collaboration with Seijma-san. During the workshop we could visit the Inujima Island with Ito-san and at the same time work on landscaping near the Inujima Life Garden. The spots where we were working had never been touched by any renovation, so we tried to make them more comfortable (gardening the bushes in order to open the sea-view, moving rocks to create seats, cleaning paths ...). The work was very manual, but the weather was perfect for such work - so it didn't feel hard at all. During the party arrived all the architecs you could see on the picture with me (Nishizawa, Fujimoto, Hirata, Ishigami, Tsukamoto...), the Brazilian ambassador Correa Do Lago, and probably others well-known people that I couldn't recognise."
So, this was yet another rich and unconventional event organised by Sejima Kazuyo, who always manages to make students enjoy and learn - even when the work gets physically hard.  

co+labo radović Alison Young@co+labo, with a seminar, lectures+collaborative research++ 

Alison Young, the Francine V. McNiff Professor of Criminology at the University of Melbourne, School of Social and Political Sciences is back at co+labo, this time not only to deliver a lecture but to involve some of our student in her latest explorations of Tokyo and its urban atmospheres. Here is what she says for colaboradovic blog: "For a number of years I have been researching the ways in which illicit place-making cultural practices, in cities such as London, Melbourne, New York, Tokyo, Berlin and Paris, have been regarded as social problems to be contained and controlled. This primarily centred on legal, social and cultural responses to graffiti and street art, as well as trying to understand the objectives, motivations and experiences of individuals engaged in illicit street art and graffiti. Such research presents challenges for data collection and analysis, ethical issues relating to the interviewing of people engaged in illegal activities, and for the documentation and interpretation of places that are sometimes hidden and sometimes public, and which are constantly changing. My recent investigations have expanded from this to examine a broader landscape of contestation around the production, maintenance and regulation of certain urban environments and ‘atmospheres’. In this talk, I’ll discuss two specific research projects on which I am studying different kinds of atmospheres and environments. The first relates to the ways in which the built environment and the street are used by individuals experiencing homelessness, and relates to a project conducted in Melbourne in 2017.

The second involves the relationship between institutions of criminal justice, such as police stations or prisons, and their urban locations. Here I’ll speak about developing and carrying out research in Japan on the atmospheres and environments of the koban, or ‘police box’. I’ll discuss a small pilot study of koban conducted in Tokyo in May-June 2018, and being expanded and developed during my visit to Keio University. In relation to both projects, I’ll focus on questions of ethnographic method activating concepts such as ‘assemblage’, ‘atmosphere’, and ‘encounter’."

Parts of Alison's research will be presented in two research seminars, at the beginning (photo above) and start of her visit, and in a special guest lecture within Darko's course Theories of Architecture and Urban Design (photo below). In her research fieldwork Alison will be assisted by a group of co+labo students, coordinated by Sanja Zonja, who investigates similar themes.

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).