Tourists visiting Tokyo may not be architectural fans, however, anyone remains fascinated by this unique piece of architecture – Nakagin Capsule Tower. Together with development of Internet, SNS and later – Instagram, more and more people become aware and begin appreciating its silent appearance. Nevertheless, this silence makes spectators indifferent to the fate of this building and they remain unaware of drama moving around this building for many years. During this exhibition it became possible to show the hidden life inside the building. By conducting interviews with residents different stories were told, what shows diversity of capsule interiors and lifestyles behind similar facades and round windows. Instagram in this case serves as a tool to connect people outside and inside in order to fill a gap between indifference and passion. Visitors of the exhibition may not only view but also touch and feel actual things brought from different residents. Thus, such awareness and publicity that follows development of applications like Instagram may help us preserve buildings longer.
ETHNIC FOOD KITHEN
PROLOGUE
In Ikebukuro, a city with many foreign workers, there are many ethnic restaurants. In ethnic restaurants, peo- ple recall a certain “place” through food. It can be said that ethnic cuisine has an aspect of transmitting “place” that goes beyond food. Therefore, I propose an ethnic kitchen to explore food as a commons.
DECONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF ETHNIC CUISINE
There are various types of ethnic cuisines. In recent years, with the development of social networking sites, “authenticity” is becoming more and more important in ethnic cuisine. However, the actual cuisine is defined by the ingredients and the cooking method, and there is a limit to the cooking method. Therefore, when we deconstructed the cooking process, we found that the heating process is the most important one. Therefore,
We decided to classify the world’s cuisines not by coun- try or region, but by heating method. Just as fire has created gatherings of people since ancient times, we hope that fire will create new communities of people in this project. In addition, we believe that the food pre- pared there will eventually be influenced by the cuisines of other countries and become international cuisine. Regarding the recent boom in international cuisine, ac- cording to (1), it can be said that it is a trend of ideo- logical support to break away from the illusory recogni- tion of nationalities. However, statelessness, which can be reached only at the end of the transmission of the identity of all people as an ethnic group, is very differ- ent from a society in which the identity of nationality is suppressed, even if it is the same in the sense that it is not bound to a single nationality, and it would be an attractive society.
CONSTRUCTING THE KITCHEN AS A SINGLE WORLD
Reconstructing the world’s cuisine in terms of process- es rather than actual geographical criteria is equivalent to creating a semantic world or city. In this project, the only thing that was decided was that one unit would be created for each heating place, but I could not find any basis for the decision beyond that. Therefore, the archi- pelago model was used in this project as the basis for the architectural decision, because the existing pillar grid was a factor, precisely because it was a renovation of a department store, and the places where people stay avoided the area around the pillars, and the space sur- rounded by pillars became one unit. However, more than such a rationale, the image of the world map held by ethnic cuisine led to the model of Archipelago.
Arata Isozaki is one of the architects who confronted the problem of the absence of a determinant basis for design. He began using the term “tentative form” after a conversation with Ignazi Sola-Morales in 1990, hav- ing developed it from his methodological theory in the 1970s. It is very interesting to note that he also used the
archipelago model in his Tentative Form, in which a one-time form was chosen depending on the situation at hand. In this project, the archipelagoes are connected by an infrastructure of water and fire (smoke), so it can be said that the method of generation is just like the city itself. Not only in this project, but also in architectur- al design, the criterion of judgment is always tentative, and therefore, the citation of the city as a tentative im- age in architectural design has been done since modern times. Therefore, the citation of the city as a tense im- age in architectural design has been done since modern times. As a sign of this, we can see many urban theories by architects as concept making.
ETHNIC FOOD KITCHEN
Returning to the description of the project, the place created by the counter and ducts is repeated, changing its form for each type of heating. At this point, there is a danger of uniformity in design and experience. In such a situation, Aureli describes the concept of enclave, re- ferring to the non-stop city. enclave is a means to break away from the uniformity of the space, and it also shares the same concept of landmarking. In this proj- ect, the decision was made to place the fire place on the periphery, with the exhaust ducts outside, and the more public units in the center. Here, by arranging the kitch- en as an enclave in addition to the tables, redundancy is ensured even within the grid arrangement. Through ethnic cuisine, the exploration of the rationale for de- sign in architecture is considered to be the outcome of this project.
DESIGN PURPOSE
Ethnic cuisines from around the world were catego- rized by heating method, and each cooking area was ar- ranged and designed. In addition, since the energy used for heating determines whether or not it can be reused, the color of the piping was changed for each type of en- ergy to create a space where the variations of the world’s cuisine can be visually recognized.
Biking Shibuya River
Our intention for this project was to create a single inspirational intervention, demonstrating both the functional and adventurous aspects of bicycling to people sho usually travel Tokyo by metro, bus or car. This resulted in the concept of adding a bicycle path on top of the Shibuya River, which runs from Shibuya station to Tokyo Bay. With this intervention, we’re able to use a void in the city to create an experience an experience that is unique to bicyclists.
Childcare / YIMBY
Low wages, long working hours, and an increasing burden due to the excessive demands of parents cause a shortage of childcare workers. There is also the NIMBY problem, where residents’ opposition to the construction of childcare facilities has forced them into poor conditions, such as under elevated railway tracks. All of these problems are caused by the fact that childcare is regarded as someone else’s business. A binary pits child welfare against economic activity and living conditions and excludes it. We tear away the asphalt that is paved by egoism. The soil opens up childcare, which used to be on the “other side” of the wall, to the city through activities such as composting, fieldwork and, children’s play in the soil.
Bike On Fragments
The idea is to improve Tokyo bikeability taking as starting point the existing bikeable roads in Tokyo. Those streets represented a qualitative designed for bike. Re-named “fragment” because of their characteristic feature if being interrupted at some point – feature that also allow these streets to be distinguished by low traffic – or being accidentally found while riding. The aim is not to establish a fixed network between those. The intention is instead to provide small interventions on these streets, according existing potential of those situations, leaving the free choice to combine these “bikeable fragments” with other situations (local streets or main streets) according to the needs of the users.