LAB #2(41) 2008

LAB interview _

new sense of value is inherently imbued with new spatial experience, and inevitably have new exterior appearance as a result. Or maybe you think space is just indivisible and outer space flow to inner? It could be reason of such a miser furnishings… I think external space and interior space are not fundamentally different things, but differen- tiated perception of one entity vis-à-vis space that relates to people. Do you make object design or maybe would like to? If so what would it is or could be? I am not interested in designing architecture as an object. Japanese architects try to combine private and public space. Why it so important for you to com- bine them? To me, a notion to connect private and public is not important in itself. However, I would like interior space and exterior spaces to have rich interactions. That way, a new form can be en- gendered with a power to connect private and public from time to time. Why in the project of Tokyo Apartment you decided to use the form of prototypical “house” shapes? Do you think this form is perfect? The archetypical house shapes is one of my favorite forms. That is because this shape can be recognized by anybody as a house. Concern- ing Tokyo Apartment, I wanted it to be a new cityscape as well as a new urban experience. To

have the houses stacked is different thanmerely simply stacking boxes. This scenery is in a way, an improbably scenery and simultaneously a dream-like scene. Furthermore, this design includes roof-scape as part of circulation flow. It is an image of freely walking above a city. We also designed openings that utilized the gaps created in between those house shapes. In other words, this house shape makes possible something that indicates Tokyo that could never exist and yet Tokyo that is most Tokyo-like. Simultaneously, it is an opportunity in order to produce the rich experiences of architecture. Primitive Future House project is very interesting as it’s reminded metabolist’s projects. Was you influenced by this style anyway? I respect the Metabolists but my methodology and their methodology has a decisive differ- ence. They possessed the “trunk.” That is to say, they possessed an axis with respect to type, a center if you will. On the other hand, my Primitive Future House is thoroughly informed by localities. Based on relationships formed by local differences in level, functionality is formed and structure is formed. There exists neither axis nor center. Thus, I think these localities or non-centrality is a key to new architecture. I know you do lecturing. What is the main thing you would like people to bring in from them? I would like them to have fun in thinking about

as comprehensive as architecture into such a small domain. How do you think is architecture first of all method to structure your mind or realization is more important? They are both equally important to me. I think to give form to my vision of new sense of value and to create new ways in which people can ex- ist by actualizing it, are mutually made stronger by the existence of both. How do you think is architecture priority of hu- man being? I mean is architecture a part of art field or just mathematically estimated way of space organization? I believe architecture is an imaginative mani- festation of deeply rooted sense of value as one think of how we humans exist. Where are we tomorrow, in what form, and how are we living? I guess you can call that “art,” but I think it is more an art that has a power to revolutionize daily lives. What are your relations with a space? What is more important for you – around space and object as a whole or inner space and its formalization? I ammost interested in space and architecture, or you can call it a place to live, and these two things form my fundamental values. I do not wish to conduct a spatial drama nor create unu- sual spaces and exteriority. I want to broaden the potentiality of the world we live in, even if it is in infinitesimal steps, something made from

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№2 _ 41 _ 2008