2024-11-14T23:30:08-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/127173703/welcome-to-the-jungle-sou-fujimoto-lectures-on-applying-natural-infrastructure-to-urban-design Julia Ingalls 2015-05-12T17:39:00-04:00 >2015-05-19T17:56:33-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/96/96qus826b1js2yyw.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p>When an architect talks about &ldquo;transparency,&rdquo; as Sou Fujimoto did during his well-attended lecture at UCLA&rsquo;s Decafe at Perloff Hall on Friday, it&rsquo;s always a relief when it refers to more than a literal degree of opacity. Presenting nine of his projects in a lecture than ran ten minutes over time, Fujimoto framed his practice in terms of applying the complex organizational structure of nature to urban environments. Fujimoto grew up in relatively bucolic Hokkaido and later moved to Tokyo, where he perceived the mess of urban density with its skyscrapers and street-level food stalls as a kind of steel and glass forest, replete with pockets of intimacy and inspiring vistas. This central concept of the forest and its alternating layers of transparency and density neatly encapsulates the bulk of Fujimoto&rsquo;s work. But the &ldquo;transparency&rdquo; in Fujimoto&rsquo;s work extends far beyond the stagger of windows and literal glass houses: here is an architecture that seems to embody the 21st notion of priva...</p>