Lecture by Jonathan Solomon

Coinciding with Jonathan Solomon’s latest publication, Cities Without Ground, a book that maps the complex three-dimensional connectivity of Hong Kong's pedestrian passageways, this lecture explores general conditions of the aformal through specific exploration of three buildings in Hong Kong that while outside mainstream histories of the city's development exhibit unique qualities and three architectural proposals that exacerbate them.

Holcim Innovation Prize 2012

Prof. Obuchi’s design team, Cast on Cast, from Design Research Lab at Architectural Association in London has received Holcim Innovation 3rd prize 2012.

They received Holcim Awards “Next Generation” 1st prize in 2011 European category, and this time for its international competition including submissions from professionals and academics around the world.

http://www.holcimfoundation.org/T1509/Innovation_3rd_prize_-_United_Kingdom.htm

G30 Exhibition

G30 Studio work is now on display at the entrance hall of our building at Department of Architecture. Focus of our work so far is to establish the parallel design system between analogue and digital productions for differential mass-fabrications. 

Robotic Fabrications in Architecture

Together with Matthias Kohler, Michael Budig and their students from ETH Zurich, we held a joint review and discussed the latest research on robotic fabrications in architectural experimentation.

Japan Studio 2012 Joint Midterm Review

We hosted a midterm review at University of Tokyo joined by 9 schools from US, Europe and Asia.

Participating schools:

University of Tokyo

Princeton University

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

University of Hong Kong

Columbia University

California College of the Arts

Tsinghua University

Osaka Sangyo University

Nagoya institute of Technology

Obuchi Lab + Harvard GSD Tokyo Site Visit 3

Tokyo Architectural Boat Tour

We went to a boat trip to see a face of Tokyo which can only be seen from rivers. The trip was organized by Prof. Jinnai from Hosei University and also joined by Ken Oshima of Washington University and Prof. Mark Mulligan of Harvard GSD. We have seen many places in Tokyo, but from the river, the city looked quite different. Thank you Prof. Jinnai for organizing the trip!

Obuchi Lab + Harvard GSD Tokyo Site Visit 2

We visited the world’s largest Storm Water Discharge Tunnel which prevents flooding disasters. A giant tunnel connects many small rivers with Edo River, Tokyo's major river, helping to reduce a potential overflow into residential areas during major storms.  The tunnel was HUGE! It is also know as Underground Temple.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Outer_Underground_Discharge_Channel
http://www.ktr.mlit.go.jp/edogawa/project/gaikaku/frame_index.html