March 9th, 2015: 1st Year Presentations with Thomas Weaver of AA School

On March 9th, Thomas Weaver of AA School joined us for the 1st year studio presentations.

We were very fortunate to have Thomas Weaver join us as a guest critic for presentations by the 1st Year Studio dealing with the design for Digital Fabrication Laboratory Pavilion 2015. Thomas offered very fresh and constructive critique from the stand point of history and theory. This was followed by a lively, engaging discussion and a lecture by Thomas Weaver titled, "ALPHABET."

Thomas Weaver teaches at the AA School of Architecture in London, where he also edits all of the AA's books and journals, including the award-winning title, AA Files.

Jun Sato gave a kick-off structural engineering lecture for first year pavilion project

Sato sensei gave the kick-off structural engineering lecture for the first year students. We are planning various material tests (e.g. bending, compression, and buckling). Each project has its own design and material property thus it is important to listen the expert to decide which test is suitable.

Smart tool specialist gave a lecture

Sugiura-san, a visionary researcher in tangible computer interaction, gave a lecture about his previous works including Graffiti Fur.

Harmonograph

Designing the shape of STIK PAVILION

Now that the construction of the Stik Pavilion is finished, we have been working on documenting some of the processes. As such, it could be interesting to revisit the formal design process that the lab was exploring. The following video shows how the shape of the pavilion was generated using the Harmonograph; a mechanical apparatus with two pendulums which generates a geometric shape.

Guest Lecture: Peter Cook (Dec 22)

On Monday, December 22, Visiting Professor Peter Cook gave a special guest lecture and participated in a discussion with Kengo Kuma in Lecture Hall #15 at Engineering Building #1 at the University of Tokyo.

Commune 246 opened!!

We successfully completed the project of Food Cart in Commune 246, Aoyama, Tokyo!! Now entire Commune246 is open thus please visit the facility!
(You can see our Food Cart wrapped by chopsticks in the middle of the photo.)
Our cart accommodate a Shop which sells Organic Soy Bean products ranging from Japanese traditional "Natto" to Soy milk smoothy. You can find more info about Commune 246 in following links.

http://commune246.com/
https://www.facebook.com/commune246

Guest Lecture: Yael Reisner (Dec 20)

On Saturday, December 20, Yael Reisner gave a guest lecture in Lecture Hall 15 in Engineering Building #1 at the University of Tokyo's Hongo Campus.

The lecture, entitled "When Architecture is Experienced as Beautiful", was moderated by Kengo Kuma.