co+labo radović         co+labo's Miyatake Sotaro @ Gehl Architects in Copenhagen                                             

Final year Masters student at co+labo, Sotaro Miyatake, took a year off to embark on some intensive internship,  enrich his experience and further expand his understanding of and the skills in making quality in architecture and urban design. Since September, he is at the co+labo's prestigious partner Gehl Architects in Copenhagen. Miyatake-san currently works on several Gehl project under the mentorship of David Sim, a Creative Director and Partner at Gehl's and a regular contributor to various co+labo activities, from joint fieldwork in Tokyo to research Conferences and Symposia, regardless of those are held in the biggest city in the world, Tokyo or at the tiny island of Vis.

Once he gets back to co+labo, Miyatake's experience will help us further advance the quality of our research and design-reserach in the field of urban quality, expand collaboration with Gehl's, and inspire our other students to seek international knowledge and top global standard skills.

Photo: Miyatake-san, under the close scrutiny of his mentor@Gehl's, David Sim.

co+labo radović  internal co+labo Competition for a new stage in the life of our Barn House

In 2012, by winning the 3rd LIXIL International Competition for the Next Generation Sustainable House, co+labo has achieved one of its greatest successes. The win at the reputable international competition was a big achievement itself. But, the most important was that the victory was based on true design-reserach exploration of the basic principles of co+labo  on rigorous application of an ethos of environmental and cultural responsiveness and responsibility, broader ideas which have found their spatial expression by responding to multilayered, complex physical, climatic, social and cultural realities of Memu Meadows, Taiki Cho, Hokkaido. 

The Barn House questioned and enriched the requirements of the competition brief to accommodate two visiting researchers by adding another two residents, two horses which provided critical contribution to energy balance of the house AND whose presence continues to provoke critical thinking and generates an awareness about the widespread environmental and cultural degradation. The Barn House was designed to remind that sustainable architecture has to address not only the pragmatic issues such as energy balance, but also those related to the poetics and totality of place, that it has the responsibility to deal with meaning, identity, otherness and belonging.One of important aspect of the co+labo concept of Barn House was that the project was never to be finished. The house was conceived as a space of learning, a space to learn in, a space to learn from, and a space which iteslf learns, changes and, hopefully, gets better. 

Over the last three years, during their regular visits to Memu Meadows, co+labo students investigated various aspects of the performance of the building, and contributed to efforts to improve it. During the last summer, we have organised an internal co+labo competition of ideas, aiming to open new stage in the life of the Barn House. We sought to address the quality of life of both human and equine residents, and how to make them fully live Hokkaido and enjoy life there.

The Jury members were Milica Muminović (University of Canberra), Komatsu Katsuhito (KKAA, Kengo Kuma Architecture Associates) - both the members of the award winning team,  Saikawa Takumi (KKAA, the LIXIL competition advisor), Vuk Radović (co+labo founding partner and team advisor), Meijo Toshiki (KKAA) and Kondo Tetsuo (Kondo Architects). The Chair of the Jury was Darko Radović, and Technical Secretary and Advisor Sano Satoshi.

The awards at the Internal co+labo Barn House Competition 2015 went to:

1st prize: Invitation of the Landscape - Tomotake Miyagaki, Ryoto Amano, Hisamu Yamamori

2nd prize: The Four Season Deck - Conan Ito, Vitor Masayuki Endo, Carolina Emi Muraki

3rd prize: Ivy and Frost - Moe Suzuki, Wakataro Ueno, Ayumu Magome

The members of the Jury have identified a number of elements in each of the projects which deserve consideration, and suggested their further development.  co+labo's visiting PhD student Paula Jaen will be in charge of design development team and help the Barn House find new expressions of the values and ideals our laboratory stands for.

co+labo radović a special introduction to Brazilian master modernist for co+labo+friends   

On 12 October, co+labo members were treated with a very special gift - a guided tour through the exhibition Oscar Niemeyer: The Man Who Built Brasilia at MOT, The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The tour was organised and guided by an old friend of co+labo, the Ambassador of Brazil in Japan, Mr André Correa do Lago. In true co+labo spirit (represented by  + ... + ... + ...), we invited members of Keio's other architecture and urban design laboratories.

A passionate architectural aficionado, André do Lago provided an enlightening introduction and guided us through the exhibition, skilfully set up and curated by MOT's Yuko Hasegawa and SANAA's Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa.

co+labo's collaboration with André do Lago and the Embassy of Brazil, which started with our urban research pavilion in front of the Embassy in Aoyama during the football World Cup in 2014, continues. 
colaboradović.blogspot.com will keep you posted about our ambitious plans for future collaboration.

co+labo radović      co+labo's Narumi Hanako wins SD Architectural Graduation Competition          

Each year, after completing their final studio, undergraduate students of architecture and urban design at Keio's Department of  Systems Design can enter the SD Graduation Competition. The 2015 Jury (Jorge Almazán, Rafael Balboa, Davisi Boontharm, Hiroyuki Ito, Tatsuya Kishimoto, Masayuki Kohiyama, Darko Radović and Satoshi Sano) have awarded First Prize to co+labo's Hanako Narumi, and her project Artistic Plaza, in front of Rieka Hara (Almazán Studio) and Taiga Sato (Kishimoto Studio). The Awards include books and sponsorship at the JIA Competition 2015.

co+labo radović      co+labo's enigmatic cloud emerges at the skies of Yagami Campus        

As reported at this blog on 19 July, a team of co+labo Masters and undergraduate students has won Keio University Hiyoshi Art and Performance Project - HAPP Competition 2015. Over the last two months, the idea of In the Cloud - on the Cloud pavilion has gone through rigorous design development and expert consultations, which included a number of 1:1 scale tests. As the opening date is getting close, so the co+labo cloud starts to take its final shape and slowly emerge at the skies above Yagami. After the remaining several experiments with contextualisation and adaptiation to the site, the pavilion will have its inaugural appearance at the Hiyoshi Campus Autumn Festival, organised by Keio Research Center for the Liberal-Arts with an aim to facilitate communication between the University and its broader community.

The Cloud will be used in co+labo urban research projects.

co+labo radović             Darko-先生’s  還暦                                                                                               

With some delay, due to a lot of travel, co+labo has organised Darko-先生’s  還暦 (for those not knowing what還暦 is ... check here)

co+labo radović         co+labo's Suzuki Akitaka @ Politecnico di Milano                                  

First year Masters student at co+labo, Aki Suzuki has started his Keio-PoliMi Double Degree studies at Politecnico's ABC Campus in Lecco. This indeed is a big step for both Aki-san and for co+labo. His move marks the opening of a new stage in an already rich collaboration between two great universities in the fields of architecture and urbanism. From an initiative by Professors Marco Imperadori and Darko Radović, over the last several years collaboration between Politecnico di Milano and Keio University steadily grew to include regular visits, exchange of students, exchange of staff to this, first full Double Degree candidature in the fields related to production of space. 

Aki-san was well received by Professors Imperadori and Masera, (recent Visiting Research Fellow at Keio/co+labo, greeted and guided by his old friends, Arch. Antonella Colistra and PoliMi students Silvia Spallina and Salvatore Nastasi - who all also studied at co+labo radović. Our Suzuki Moe and Miyagaki Tomo recently visited Milano, to make sure that Aki-san is settling in well (... and, by the way, also visited Triennale). 

In parallel to this, significant efforts are being done to start ambitious, collaborative research in the near future. We will keep you posted ... In the meantime - tutti auguri a nostro Aki-san!  

co+labo radović                    co+labo @ Anatomy of the Islands ... 4th time  ... report 3           

Anatomy of the Islands design-reserach Workshop has finished on 26 September, with public presentation and discussion. Students from Graz, Ljubljana, Split, Tokyo and Vienna, who were organised in seven groups, presented their ideas how to deal with the problems of depopulation and excessive mass tourism, and spatial projections of other, more environmentally and culturally responsible ways of synthesis between global challenges and local resources - at the example of the Island of Vis, its two beautiful towns, agricultural hinterland and the pristine coast.

For last two days, Keio team was joined by Tetsuo Kondo, an exciting young architect, a regular contributor to co+labo. 

(fragments from some of the final Anatomy of Islands presentations)

co+labo students Magome, Narumi, Sato, Tajima and Yamamori continued their journey and on the way back visited Barcelona. Jaume Carné, an excellent urbanist from the Catalan capital and Darko's old friend, gave them a very special tour, combining some of the regular sites which he shows those who join his excellent BiciCulturaBCN tours with useful feedback and advice about their own investigations of urban quality at co+labo. 

(BCN bike tour, BiciCulturaBCN - warmly recommended by co+labo to all who love cities, urban culture, architecture and Barcelona, and its passionate mind and heart - Mr Jaume Carné)

The other two co+labo students decided to stay at the Balkans, Carolina exploring the Adriatic Coast in early Autumn and Vedrana doing some PhD fieldwork in her Bosnia.   

co+labo radović                    co+labo @ Anatomy of the Islands ... 4th time  ... report 2            

Following an exciting  Anatomy of Islands Symposium, design-research Workshop is focusing at the paths towards alternative, environmentally and culturally responsible tourism at concrete locations of the ancient island of Vis.

Seven student teams from Austria, Croatia, Japan and Slovenia, under the guidance of an interdisciplinary team of mentors from Keio University, Sophia University, Universities of Graz, Ljubljana, Maribor, Split, Tokyo and Vienna are seeking innovative combinations of the latest in environmentally and culturally tourism, as presented and debated at the Anatomy of the Islands Symposium, and radical, alternative architectural, urban, rural and territorial design. 

co+labo radović                    co+labo @ Anatomy of the Islands ... 4th time   ... report 1          

This September, co+labo radović and Kengo Kuma Laboratory for the fourth time jointly participate in the Anatomy of the Islands Symposium, which will be followed by an design-research Workshop. 

Keio team is even stronger, then before, with professors Yasue Mitsukura, Akira Mita and Hiroto Kobayashi (and his students) joining the event. For the first time, students from both Yagami and Shonan Fujisawa Campus will participate in the Anatomy of Islands Workshop.

co+labo radović  preparations for co+labo's late summer of overseas academic explorations

As regular co+labo participation at the Academy of the Islands Symposium and Workshop approaches, on 8 September 2015 Darko held a lecture within the Split - an Urbanistic Case for 21st Century.

The lecture was followed by passionate discussion and a couple of well-publicised interviews. The emphasis was on the key values guiding co+labo radović and the roles those values and our approaches to thinking and production of space could play in defining the future of the city of Split and similar jewels of urbanity, which are under the threat of banalisation through uncontrolled tourism and overdevelopment worldwide.

"Spektar" - weekend special of Slobodna Dalmacija. 

co+labo radović     co+labo's Tomotake Miyagaki among top 5% at the AIJ Competition   

At the Architectural Institute of Japan's annual Architecture Competition, which brings together best Thesis projects from the previous school year, co+labo Masters student Miyagaki Tomotake has achieved an excellent result. His project which strongly advocates urban agriculture, with particular emphasis on beekeeping in dense urban areas of central Tokyo, was selected among the top 5%. Twelve works shortlisted from the pool of 281 entries will be presented at the final ceremony at Tokai University in September 2015. 

co+labo radović    co+labo+Kuma-Lab@Summer School Mostar ends with public lecture by Kengo Kuma and presentations in front of the Kuma, Radović, Boontharm, Zec Jury   

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co+labo radović   a joint co+labo+Kuma-Lab team@ Urban Synapse Summer School Mostar  

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co+labo radović  Slovenian exchange students completed an excellent semester at co+labo 

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co+labo radović   co+labo graduate students comleted Kazuyo Sejima's Miyajima Studio   

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co+labo radović   successful completion of co+labo undergraduate design-reserach project  

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