For most of the past year, one of the researchers here, Jan Vranovsky, has been documenting the seemingly mundane spaces of Japan. His photos capture much of the spatial essence of Tokyo. 

While Tokyo contains much "starchitecture," after living here awhile, I find the kinds of spaces Jan uncovers to generally be the most interesting part of the city.

In AA files 64, Thomas Daniell writes about "The Origins of the Street Observation Society." Jan's work continues in the tradition of ROJO, the Architecture Detectives League, the Thomasson Observation Centre: "identifying and categorizing the readymade 'artworks' lying latent in the streets of Tokyo."

Please have a look here: http://janvranovsky.tumblr.com/

For the thesis project in this program, we work in teams of two. We come up with a proposal together and then each focus on different aspects of how to fabricate the project to complete our individual research. All of the research projects last year studied ways that wasted materials could be... View full entry

Hello Archinect world! Recently, I finished up my thesis project and graduated. Here is a short video we made several months ago to serve as an intro to our project. More posts to follow shortly. View full entry

Harvesting Plasticity Thesis Project

I've been receiving some questions recently regarding the Master's program here at the University of Tokyo, and thought I'd briefly share how the course is structured and what we were up to the past year.The system here at the University of Tokyo is divided in "labs" and is probably closer in... View full entry

We recently finished their mid-term reviews and started spring break. I'll try to post some projects on here of what others have been working on. The first year students are working on Pavilion Project Proposals (one of which will be built in October) while those of us in our last year are working... View full entry

The project demanded that various aspects be worked on simultaneously. The lab was therefore split into separate organisms that operated independently while remaining organized under the lab's focus. The first image is a kind of flow chart that illustrates these simultaneous operations... View full entry

We'll be putting up a few more posts on how the final construction process went, including what areas still require further research. For now, here are some more photos of the final construct. View full entry

Taking a break from sticks for a moment (kinda), there are a few projects related to Obuchi Lab currently up and around town.Commune 246 consists of a series of food trucks designed by various labs at the University of Tokyo or by youngish Japanese architects, as well as a "university" hosting... View full entry

The following are a series of diagrams and drawings we produced to document the process of construction before we began building. It took us a little over a month to figure out the logistics of producing the pavilion as a panelized construct and on such a large scale.Several factors changed as we... View full entry

After our break in September, we resumed work on the project, with the help of graduate students new to the lab. We worked in four basic teams, which were somewhat fluid, but helped us structure the direction of the various activities. The "machine team" worked to finalize the development of our... View full entry

The STIK Pavilion demanded a high level of dedication and work throughout it's conception to it's completion. Nonetheless there were moments in between the process, and the city of Tokyo precedes itself as fast moving, cultured, and pocketed with serene moments all at once. (The images are posted... View full entry

STIK - Assembly Test (timelapse)

August was a big month for the project. We wanted to progress the research as far as possible before our break in September. Our primary objective was to construct a 3 meter high mock-up of the final pavilion.We setup our projection scanning system, got our machines working more smoothly, and... View full entry

In July, we gained more confidence in our ability to physically manifest a scaled-up version of our smaller prototypes. We figured out that by tilting the machine so that the sticks dropped at about a 45 degree angle, we could build angled walls.. Likewise, structural tests performed with our... View full entry

As we continued to develop the project, it became clear that there were several different issues we needed to address.The development of the "smart tool," basically a hand-held 3d printer distributing sticks instead of plastic, quickly became a task requiring full-time dedication.  Likewise, we... View full entry

To kick-off this blog, I thought it would be good to describe the work we've been doing on our "STIK" project for the past eight months, the culmination of which was the construction of a large pavilion on the school grounds, as well as a food truck project in Omotesando, an area in southwest... View full entry

We hope to use this blog to chronicle the various happenings within the University of Tokyo, as well as look more generally at the architectural scene here in Japan.Every year, we build a pavilion project with the intention of reanalyzing construction processes to create form. Below are a few... View full entry