Class Category: 2019_Variete / Architecture / Desire

In April 2019, Jan De Vylder, Inge Vinck and Jo Taillieu, principals of the Belgian office ADVVT, were invited to Tokyo Tech for three weeks design studio. The purpose of the course was for the students learning the architectural language developed by ADVVT by carefully studying 11 houses in Belgium and translating them to the sociocultural and physical context of Tokyo. Through this process the professors wanted to reveal which are the inherent architecture design principles, and to examine how they adapt or remain unchanged depending on the context. The students were arranged in eleven groups of four to five members. Each team received one ADVVT house and a plot in Tokyo. In the first few days they created a 1:10 / 1:20 model of a relevant corner of the Belgian house they were given. This first exercise proved to be extremely useful in order to familiarize themselves with the way to think and make of the architects. After that, they had to insert that Belgian house into a site in Tokyo. Each group had a relevant piece of Japanese domestic architecture as neighbor, from which they could also learn. The final project had to be presented in a 1/30 model and a A1 section perspective. Unexpectedly every project had an autonomous nature, which somehow still recalled the original house but with a rooted Tokyoite character. The results of this intense workshop were exhibited in TOTO Gallery MA within the exhibition Variete / Architecture / Desire.