co+labo radović    Studio B presentation concludes the Keio Architecture PoliMi workshop  
The concluding session focused at Masters Studio B work which is being  within the Comprehensive Design Workshop. Joined by our regular  visiting teachers and Studio B leaders, Tetsuo Kondo and Takuomi Saikawa, Politecnico di Milano and Keio Architecture teams provided inputs aimed at advancing the quality of nineteen projects, the selection of which will form the centrepiece of the forthcoming Keio Architecture CDW Exhibition in July.

co+labo radović   Graduation Diploma session opened PoliMi@Keio Architecture workshop 

The opening collaborative teaching session focused at ten presentations of undergraduate students from Radović and Almazán Studios, who are participating in the broader Comprehensive Design Workshop 2018. The comments were provided by Visiting Professors Manuela Grecchi, Gabriele Masera and Matteo Ruta, regular Keio Architecture contributor, Professor Davisi Boontharm (Meiji University) and Keio Architecture Professors Akira Mita, Darko Radović, Tatsuya Kishimoto and Jorge Almazán. As always when design sessions are organised by co+labo, the audience was invited to take an active part, by filling in the peer-feedback sheets. The following day an Open Desk session provided opportunities for one-on-one discussions. 

co+labo radović     Politecnico di Milano @ Keio Architecture workshop hosted by co+labo 

Following the completion of a successful workshop at Politecnico di Milano, which focused at the Lecco Rowing Club sports facilities on Lago di Como (below), continuing the established, rich partnership between the two universities in the fields of architecture and urban design, a team of professors from Politecnico di Milano joined us in Tokyo, at Keio the Yagami Campus. In the period 21 June to 1 July they will be taking part in our ongoing Keio Architecture "Comprehensive Design Workshop for the Athletic and Recreational Facilities of the Hiyoshi, Shimoda, and Yagami Campuses" (CDW).

Following a number of lectures delivered by Keio Architecture local and international partners (as reported on this blog before) since the start of CDW, this International Workshop, which is part of a joint Politecnico-Keio Erasmus+ initiative, involved Professors Manuela Grecchi, Gabriele Masera and Matter Ruta (School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering). They provided inputs to Graduation Diploma (4^th year Seizu III) and Masters Studio B students of Keio Architecture, through site visits, lectures (below), student presentations and discussions (above), and desktop critic sessions, with a variety of their specialist, design-research foci, such as sustainable urban design, energy efficiency, human behaviour, building technology etc.

co+labo radović        Keio Architecture + co+labo @ PoliMi Transitional spaces workshop     

Keio Architecture team - Professors Toshiharu Ikaga, Akira Mita and Darko Radović, and Meiji University Professor Davisi Boontharm took part in an international workshop "Transitional spaces for smart, sustainable and sensuous settlements" in the Italian town of Lecco. The focus of this design-research project was on a real project, the improvement of the Lecco Rowing Club sports facilities on a beautiful Lago di Como. The workshop, part of a joint Erasmus+ initiative of Politecnico di Milano and Keio University, Tokyo, explored the concept of transitional spaces, as an umbrella term open to interpretation from the points of view of urban design, energy efficiency, human

behaviour, building technology etc. Student teams included three co+labo Masters students who currently study at Politecnico di Milano, Yamashita Shohei (Double Degree in Architecture), Norimi Kinoshita, Masahito Motoyama along with Natsuko Yamamoto from Mita Lab (short exchange).
The results were very well received by the Rowing Club and members of the community, as reported in the local newspaper (above).

 

co+labo radović  co+labo thinking Smart Communities@Amsterdam Sluisbuurt Workshop

(just completed - information follows soon)

co+labo radović    Keio Architecture book, www site launch and - a lecture by Shigeru Ban 

On 21 May 2018 co+labo joined forces with Kobayashi Lab (Keio SFC) to organise the launch of KEIO ARCHITECTURE, an international, interdisciplinary and collaborative Research, Design-Research and Education Hub - by launching first Keio Architecture book, Keio Architecture web-site and celebrating them with a lecture by Shigeru Ban, who teaches architecture at Keio. The event was opened by Yoko Hamada, Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies.  Hiroto Kobayashi introduced our new web-site and Darko Radović, while introducing Keio Architecture book and Comprehensive Design Workshop briefly spoke about the history of architectural and urban design education at the oldest university in Japan, the significance of the present moment and the things to come, the realisation of "Keio Architecture Dream". After the concluding words by Kohei Itoh, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, at the cocktail party Keio Architecture staff had an opportunity to discuss plans and ideas with representatives of a number of major Japanese companies and organisations involved in production of space (below). 

The shortest summary of KEIO ARCHITECTURE is that it was conceived as a hub, jointly organized and co-managed by Department of System Design Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology and Centre for Space and Environment Design Engineering, School of Science for Open and Environmental Systems, Graduate School of Science and Technology at Yagami Campus, and Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Faculty of Policy Management, and Graduate School of Media and Governance at Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC).

The quality of KEIO ARCHITECTURE is based on the participating laboratories, headed by professors (in alphabetic order) Jorge Almazán, Toshiharu Ikaga, Yasushi Ikeda, Hajime Ishikawa, Tatsuya Kishimoto, Hiroto Kobayashi, Masayuki Kohiyama, Shohei Matsukawa, Akira Mita, Hajime Narukawa, Darko Radović and Yuko Shirai.

This blog and new web-site will be bringing news from KEIO ARCHITECTURE + its founding member, co+labo radović.

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).