Studio 02 - Tokyo Journal

Spring has come again.

My body shows some wear and tear.

Sometimes missing who I used to be.

But…I am still here.

With a soul so much more to give.

Loneliness is status quo?

No, I’m just listening to myself.

Here…have a seat.

It is now my turn to tell others your stories…

SU MYAT NAING

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TOKYO TOKYO TOKYO TOKYO TOKYO TOKYO TOKYO TOKYO TOKYO TOKYO 2

(i)

IRO - how to section a music video

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KAKUREGA – imagining a place + sensory urbanism

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TOKYO 1 – lost in translation - creatives in the contemporary world

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TOKYO 2 + 3 – forget what you know – the value of ‘unique typologies’ in architecture

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ABSTRACT DRAWINGS - plan and section as diagrams of composition

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ITERATIONS - the ‘archaeology of the mind’

(vii)

ZOOM - the detail and consequence of spatial occupation

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IRO - how to section a music video Oko Ebombo carries all the weights of all the colors, the dreams of lonely souls in this world; sacrificing his color, dancing freely to redeem people from solitary in their stead, providing a temporary paradise.

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sketches of the scenes of interest During the very first time watching ‘19 – IRO’, the music video aesthetics recorded on an 8mm film camera was so surreal and captivating. On top of the grainy yet vivid contrast of colours, the camera movement really accentuated the mysterious feeling from the music video, and it really reminded me of past trips to Tokyo.

Being a tourist and unfamiliar of this new context, people generally would be very enthusiastic and keen to learn about the culture, and to blend into the surroundings regardless of knowing that we would never be one of them.

After watching the video a few times, what left imprinted on my mind was the sublime solitary in this mundane world.

Oko sees himself as a traveller, a unique individual visiting Tokyo, questioning his identity and where he belongs to. He would be walking around, standing in the middle of crossroads as if he wanted to be noticed, and wanted to stand out in the crowds.

Oko did stand out as if he does not fit into the society, the alien subjected to people’s speculation, exuding a sense of loneliness and disconnectedness.

With the close-up shots of Oko and a few people on streets, the song felt more intimate and personal, as if they were asking the audience if they have experienced what the characters might have been feeling at that moment in time.

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Look at the colours

Look at the travellers.

Never-changing daily life.

Look at the beautiful variety of colors and

Look at me.

Can you see ? Can you not see?

What’s wrong? Why are you scared?

Who carries the pain?

I will survive and become ‘iro’.

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Iro(色) means ‘colour’ in Japanese. Another Japanese word using the word iro is iroirona(色々な), meaning ‘a variety’. Together with the lyrics, the interpretation of the whole music video as a visual poem from personal point of view; Oko sees the people, carrying a colour, a story of their own, the walking archives of memories and dreams, everyone seems interdependent yet undeniably solitary, however, tries to put up a fake façade pretending everything is fine. After considering a few shots of the video, the sequence of Oko dancing under the tree, was chosen since he was almost blending into the flower field in the back, dancing so freely without restraints, as a temporary redemption from loneliness in people’s stead.

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The section was portrayed in a way that Oko is carrying all the weights of the colours, the dreams, the loneliness of the people in the world. With the tree as his sole support, he dances and freely expressing his uniqueness to entertain people around him and himself thus, temporarily disengaging from the alienating society and creating a short-lived paradise. Looking similar to a stop motion, the scene reminded me of the chronophotographs by EtienneJules Marey, studying motions of animals via multiple exposures. Therefore, instead of having just one shot of his dance movement, the transition of time and movements would be better portrayed if the whole sequence were layered on top of one another like multiple exposures.

While trying to take a step back from the first draft, sudden realization came to mind that once an image has settled into your imagination, sometimes it is quite hard to scratch the work and look at it with a fresh mind. Though taking a few feedbacks into considerations, the final outcome did not cut out to be more abstract. However, it was quite a refreshing experience since cutting a section through a music video was quite a unique exercise - in stimulating spatial thinking and mental awareness, outside of the screen frame and how they might relate to one another.

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隠 れ 家

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KAKUREGA imagining a place + sensory urbanism After watching ’19 – IRO’ and ‘Lost in Translation’, a sense of loneliness still lingers at the thought of being in Tokyo. The main characters portrayed in those films, Oko, Bob and Charlotte seemed detached, lacking the genuine interaction with both the Japanese context and the people regardless of their physical inhabitation in the immediate context. Tokyo being one of the top megacities in the world, considering that fewer old buildings would exist in the inner suburb, the team was more interested in a more traditional building typology for the allocated Kakurega element – Shophouse #3. The site being in the inner suburb of Tokyo with a series of ‘shophouses’, a place of a mix of old and modern buildings was the imagination with first few options - an inn (ryokan), a tea house, and a town house (machiya). Following up the initial research, a homestay ryokan – family-operated Japanese style bed and breaskfast, was chosen as the final pick for the site.

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traditional Japanese lifestyle - group tea ceremony During briefing session, the element of Kakurega context pursuaded me as a social space that could bring people together. With Francois du Bois, the pianist from the Sausalito band as the key character from ‘Lost in Translation’, the narrative around his experience in Tokyo, especially in this suburb, would set out to become one of the main motivation for him to move to Japan. According to our decision of designing for a teahouse ryokan, it would be portryaed as the very first homestay accommodation Francois stayed during his travel. The ryokan then becomes the opportunity for a foreigner like Francois to meet the local family and experience the traditional Japanese lifestyle, forming genuine connections as he’s accommodated here..

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While exploring possibilities for Shophouse #3, I was reminded of a project

by Steven Holl and Vito Acconci, ‘Storefront for Art and Architecture’, where the punctured façade opens up, dissolving the boundary between inside and outside space and wondered if we could adopt this concept into the shophouse – walls becoming seatings/tables and vice versa. With our typology being the traditional building, we decided to continue with the concept of ‘engawa’, extending the interior outwards - forming the seating space for tea house, with folding doors as the divisions.

storefront for art and architecture by steven holl and vito acconci

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Surface of the City ‘Surface of the City’ chapter from the ‘Sense of the City’ emphasized the ground as the defining factor of the city that gives its own character. As if it is an open love letter to ‘asphalt’, the revolutionary material of the 19th century and its sanitized and convenient application across the urban ground. Though the author touched upon the materials of natural irregularities, commendation for asphalt is further emphasized. Current cities of the world have become quite homogenous due to the new hygienic materials and their ideal convenience for cleanliness and standardization.

Developing Shophouse #3 allowed an opportunity to accentuates the irregularities of the natural materials so that the surface, the materials age together with the occupants, revealing the traces of time gradually. While most of the urban ground could be unvaried, it is still significant for a city to have their own urban characters to show that the city is living and not just an extremely sanitized synthetic environment.

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TOKYO 1

- lost in translation - creatives in the contemporary world The first character that left the strongest impression from ‘Lost in Translation’ was the premium fantasy woman. Her interaction with Bob was awkward and was hilarious at the same time due to their miscommunication.

Information gathered from initial research around her character in contemporary Tokyo and historical prostitution in Japan was depressing and infuriating. Regardless of trying to put ourselves in their shoes, it would be impossible to be completely empathize with them in real life. It was definitely exciting to speculate how different the projects would have developed if the premium fantasy woman was chosen as the main character. However, during research it came down to a position where the information could no longer be digested properly without any prior bias. Therefore, it was required to take a step back , to re-consider the other characters and their potential developments in projects.

Among the characters listed, a character that did not have too much physical presence had to be the Sausalito pianist. Bob and Charlotte’s initial interactions mainly took place in the New York Bar of Park Hyatt Tokyo, with live entertainment in the backdrop. The music, the low lighting and intimate chattering of the bar set the right atmosphere for their interactions in the film. Sausalito band was shown on the screen for a few times throughout, however, the contribution of the Sausalito pianist to the New York Bar atmosphere could be considered quite tremendous. “Would the atmosphere be still the same with just the Jazz singer or just the

guitarist? No, but maybe, with just the pianist.” On top of questions like such, the scene of Bob and the bartender saying, “Suntory time!” left quite an impression and that we both wanted to explore the aural sensations of music in the project later on and thus, agreed to pick Francois du Bois, the Sausalito pianist as our main character for TOKYO 1. The interview with Ryuichi Sakamoto recommended by Jarrod set out to be an important piece of glimpse into a musician’s sense of living, time and ageing in Japanese culture; “Asian time - …, many of them founded on circular ideas of time… There is not the same idea of progress through time. Instead, time is a constant cycling, as in agriculture”. The idea of time left for everyone is measured yet unknown, was the factor kept pushing us to explore what piano, music and/or architecture could be responsible for.

In finding Francois’s creative community, the piano must be the object that unite these people together and so, the creative community set out to be a piano mentor, a music librarian, and a piano tuner. Not everyone understands how much contribution these roles have made, for a pianist to perform well in the spotlight. Coming across various statistics and analytics on the social isolation, lonely deaths in ageing population as well as academic papers on ageing musicians practicing shakuhachi (traditional Japanese flute), we regarded the elderly community as our local community along with our creative community to be led

by Francois and to be empowered, allowing them to integrate with other communities of Tokyo.

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“For these older practitioners, music is a path for lifelong, self-cultivation rather than technical development. Music helps them to feel healthy, active and still able to develop, if not physically, but musically and spiritually.”

— Koji Matsunobu, Music for life: A Japanese experience of spiritiuality, ageing & musical growth

“That is because most silences today are too long. Or maybe, the silence hasn’t changed its length, but our perception of time has sped up, so they feel longer.”

— Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Best of Times interview with Ryuichi Sakamoto

“As people grow older, they begin to feel disconnected and it has become harder to keep up with the fast-paced contemporary society. Therefore, we intend to regard architecture as the spatial platform to empower the communities to embrace the transition of ageing through music.”

— concluding statement of TOKYO 1

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TOKYO 2 + 3 - forget what you know -

the value of ‘unique typologies’ in architecture TOKYO 1 has allowed more reflection upon in what aspect the architecture would be responsible for in bridging the communities of the elderly and creatives via music (piano). The idea around faster perception of time as we age imprints on my mind remarkably and the fact that time is inevitably the essential component in making music further pushed the initial idea to solidify them as a concept for upcoming project. During exploration of potentials for the project, a few options emerged here and there: a musical restaurant serviced only by the ageing staff, a piano bar that only plays slow music of certain tempos or plays music of different tempos at different times of the day, and a piano school that teaches piano to the elderly while acting as a community centre taking upon the activation role and such. The imagination was that it would be a typology which includes a series of spaces of certain rituals that would then dictate the occupants’ behaviours through auditory experience, i.e. a typology that intertwines following three characters: a place of action, a place of creation and a place of observation.

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Through discussion with Jarrod and feedbacks on initial TOKYO 2, the act of sharing music as an act of generosity plays quite a crucial role. Music having the ability to influence people’s mindsets, architecture could then be created in a way that allows music to travel across the interior as well as into the surrounding context. The brief of a piano academy in the context was developed during esquisse, in finding ways the communities to engage with the building. Researching the construction of a piano, its instrumental mechanism and the qualities of music that could be translated into architectural elements were investigated. However, in developing a schedule of spaces, more attention was rationed towards the accuracy of what a piano school and the communities must require, instead of considering them from a point where unique spatial qualities or human interactions could occur out of integrating the music, the architecture and the occupants together.

investigation sketches of how sound travels according to surfaces and openings 20

compositional tactics during esquisse During development of the esquisse design response, a few compositional tactics that were naturally picked up were the linear composition of the floor plans across the context, the use of grids and courtyard type exposed to the surrounding context. Along the design iterations, it became more evident that the attempt to resolve the architecture in one go that the outcome lacked the compositional rigor and resolution between plan and sectional intentions. It was also then during the

design process around mid-semester review that laid out schedule of spaces has become too rigid and restricting to pursue a wide range of spatial opportunities and the poetic aspect of the project. Regardless of the design stage during the mid-semester review, the esquisse stage definitely pushed me to a place where it became necessary to take a step back and redefine which challenging big ideas I intend to resolve for the second half of the semester.

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ABSTRACT DRAWINGS -

plan and section as diagrams of composition Architectural drawings have been long used since hundreds of years ago in communicating the idea, in translating that idea into realization and providing as the informative documents, though the notion of scale was introduced much later on until the Middle Ages. They were used to document and relay information and ideas in constructing the architecture; almost as a survival tool to cater the basic human need for shelter - Laugier’s idea of the primitive hut. In the present day, architecture has become less about survival. It has become more of a means of producing and representing the cultural and creative values. Nonetheless, the representation of architecture through drawings is still an important design tool that enables a person to explore, communicate and express the simple or complex design mechanisms.

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formal exploration and negotiation with abstract diagrams The developments in drawing tools have allowed the not only the abstract forms of ideas but also the accurate representations of the built architecture until the documentations of the final outcome in details. Drawings allow us to map and overlay spatial and material information that is often too complicated to be deciphered. They are very important diagramming tool for understanding the underlying organization and our experience in an environment. Various forms of representational techniques allow the illustration of the different forms of architectural knowledge. Information can be added or subtracted in order

to represent the spatial experience succinctly and efficiently. Therefore, any architectural representations can be considered an intentionally edited diagram that has either juxtaposed or eliminated a great deal of information.

Plans and sections are primarily used in order to explore and generate a set of spatial complexities that embody design intention, order, materials, tectonic strategies, and spatial elements at different scales. Though both may possess three dimensional implications, they are interdependent that it is essential to construct and work across both drawing strategies in order to convey spatial continuity.

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An axonometric would be then the outcome of careful negotiation between a plan and a section that demonstrates the aspects of embodied experience and architectural space revealing the structure, envelope, and the interior.

With inevitable use of latest software in production of architectural drawings nowadays, the process of illustrating an axonometric can go either efficient or redundant. Precision and scale need as much attention as overall cohesive design outcome. Whether exploded, sectioned or a combination of two, the drawing conveys the built form located in a context, revealing the mass, scale and role of internal space in regard to the whole architecture. The process of communicating the axonometric was different from those of plans and sections that the axonometric is a dissection of a known built form whereas the others, an analysis to explore unknown spatial potentials. However, revealing more insights into a known built form does not make it an easy task. It is required to determine which components to be cut through and revealed and which, to be concealed and to allow for speculation.

- requires to include a few occupants in place to understand scale and spatial implications - exploded components not reasonable for comprehesive spatial reading - lineweights require special care to reveal the depth and key elements - require to show spaces in basement to show overall building mass

how is this connected to the structures underneath?

- all components read as one flat layer without hierarchy lineweight too thick elements too dense

3D model base line to be eliminated

any human occupations? how?

one of the very first attempts in illustrating an axonometric

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ITERATIONS the ‘archaeology of the mind’ Design is a never-ending iterative process that keeps on synthesizing until a deadline or a design block is encountered. It requires critical and relative thinking that analyses the original and changing intentions, iterative outcomes and further explores other versions of design iterations that may be produced during synthesis of those elements. It is the iterative process that allows spatial organization and complications to further develop or find an alternative means to propose a question or solution. If not for this design approach, constant implementation of elaborate design moves would exhaust both time and efforts without delivering a rigorous architectural outcome efficiently.

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This type of design approach allows quick design experimentations until they begin to take sufficient form to be further developed. Experimentations that were not successful in showing their potentials would be discarded and thus, it is considered a very efficient approach in developing design. However, it is definitely easier said than done since countless self-criticisms and multiple ways of bias-thinking would appear inevitably during the design process. These cognitive biases would then have varied effects in decision making of whether to keep or to discard a design iteration(s). When an iteration presented once was received well, although it may not be the intended creative outcome, more favor is given to that specific sets of pre-existing beliefs instead of challenging. If so, it would not be considered as iteration since the results would be just within the comfort zone of preconceptions.

Another common situation is the fear of losing the current outcomes and holding most of the design iterations dearly, without eliminating or filtering any of them. As the design develops, it becomes harder to detach ourselves from what we have create, considering time, energy, and emotional investments along the way. It is required at times to take a step back from the constant turmoil of design doubts in order to see what appropriate actions needs to be taken in realization of a cohesive architectural design.

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Most of the time the ideas do not just fall like raindrops from above. It can be either a taxing or enjoyable moment depending on the comparison between the expectations and the actual outcomes. Awareness is a good tool to keep oneself in check to compare and contrast whether the intended design outcomes would be possible within given timeframe and limited energy. Drawing requires proper thinking and consideration and in producing beautiful presentation quality drawings, it would require more time and efforts in identifying the drawing contents, intentions down to the details. Studio 2 runs twice a week. In producing bi-weekly basis of presentation quality drawings, from my personal perspective, it is difficult. It is not that students are not equipped with proper knowledge and tools to produce the drawings. It was that feeling of being unprepared that the drawn outcomes are not of what was expected from ourselves. Maybe, if the turnaround time were on a weekly basis, the drawings would be more well thought of.

Maybe, maybe not. It would be unnecessary to speculate what could have happened after things have passed but it is another proposition that could potentially allow more time to ponder.

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ZOOM -

the detail and consequence of spatial occupation Humans exist in space and in fact, it would be impossible to be separated from the space. Be it intentionally designed or not, it surrounds us, and we are accommodated within. Architecture is a profession that goes hand in hand usually with the intention of accommodating both living and non-living matters. Every day we perceive our environment by moving through it – maybe a determined route, an intersection, or a central space to follow through.

However, architecture is most often interpreted and utilized in ways which were not intended originally. This requires negotiation between the actual physical space and human occupants, as well as the imagination of how the formed space would impact the human behaviors and their spatial experience within it.

“To experience architecture in a concrete way means to touch, see, hear and smell it’” — Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture

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In developing ways of spatial possibilities and new ways of reading spaces, it is crucial to detect the qualities and impacts of both the interior and the envelope, to harness the already known information around pre-existing interventions and finally to incorporate that knowledge with the new to anticipate and create new spaces. Having a clear and consistent position on the architectural expression is key in careful consideration of the relationship between the design intention, space, and humans. Only then, we could thoroughly explore new spatial readings, understand the interaction between human beings and spaces and effectively create an architectural language that successfully captures the spatial qualities originally intended.

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freehand sketches of different spatial experiences Regardless of all this underlying logic, we tend to prioritize the architectural outcome as the main dish and consider the aspect of human occupation and their behaviours as a side dish. Therefore, during the design process, a few or even many iterations appear to be alienated masses, without careful consideration for senses and embodied spatial experience. Facades act as filters between the interior and exterior, demarcating the threshold of what is to be confined or revealed. Not only the space’s form but also its phenomenological qualities determine its effects on how people experience the space. In perceiving spaces, we tend to compare the existing space to prior spatial knowledge of our physical and sensorial experiences within certain built spaces. Therefore, it is inarguably true that architecture as a discipline, harbours the power and potential to exercise and influence our perception and to shape our actions based on the quality of a space and senses it embues.

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