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Exploring problems, concepts, and inventive propositions underlying the practices of Kazuko Akamatsu, Kumiko Inui, and Erika Nakagawa.
“Living in a house can have so many delightful nuances that cannot necessarily be expressed in words. And the context of the neighbourhood changes by the hour.”
–Erika Nakagawa
“It’s nice to have visual contact with various scenes in the building even if you cannot be there. This is the condition we wanted to create.”
–Kazuko Akamatsu
“What attracts people to such spaces is probably the fact that they are neither indoor nor outdoor, they give you comfort and make you want to be there, and feel good.”
–Kumiko Inui
Models Talk is a new three-part video series that we produced together with architectural curator and editor Kayoko Ota (Tokyo) and Studio GROSS (Tokyo and Berlin), as part of our CCA c/o Tokyo program.
Socially engaged approaches in architecture, including participatory design, reprogramming, and minimum intervention, are increasingly common—but can often yield predictable results. This series of videos focuses instead on works that challenge convention in order to address current urban issues, and uses the particularities of film as a format to convey the ideas defining these works. In each video one architect leads the viewer through a model that acts as a guide by way of the problems, concepts, and inventive propositions that underlie the work.
Motivated by the desire to illustrate architectural concepts and make them more easily accessible, Models Talk gives a platform to three architects working through contemporary challenges to express their proposals.
In Recipe for Mixed Rice (10 minutes), the viewer is dropped first with Kumiko Inui on a train through Nobeoka, then through her approach to designing for its train station: an inclusive workshop that asks how space can be “freed up, not filled.” Kazuko Akamatsu reveals a similarly generous exercise in urban redevelopment in A Matter of Void (9 minutes). “Because [Shibuya is] such a dynamic place, I thought it would be more appropriate to create an environment where people can feel they’re in the middle of this constantly moving city.” Erika Nakagawa, then, conceives of any new project as “an addition to its surrounding environment” in A Neighbourhood in A House (13 minutes). The series reveals a shared empathy in how these contemporary practitioners approach design questions and the role of documentary film as an intimate vehicle behind-the-scenes of these processes.
Video release and conversation
The three videos are launched in collaboration with Dezeen on December 3, 2021. On December 8, 2021, a conversation between Giovanna Borasi and Kayoko Ota, with the participation of Studio GROSS, Kumiko Inui, Kazuko Akamatsu and Erika Nakagawa will focus on how these three projects challenge conventions in order to address contemporary urban issues—in their processes, and in their resulting built practices.
December 8, 2021, 8–9pm ET / in Japan: December 9, 2021, 10–11am JST.
The event is free and open to the public. Online, in English. To attend, please register here.
About CCA c/o Tokyo
From 2018 to 2020, we collaborated with Kayoko Ota to develop research and projects, and to facilitate public engagement in Tokyo as part of the CCA c/o program, including Islands and Villages (2018), a multi-part documentary on the posturban phenomenon in Japan, featuring Toyo Ito, Atelier Bow-Wow, Kazuyo Sejima, Toshikatsu Ienari, and Hajime Ishikawa.
Conceived as a series of temporary initiatives that are locally anchored in different cities worldwide, the CCA c/o program functions as a tool to reveal shared issues that emerge from different contexts than our own, as well as a strategy for adding new and varied perspectives to ongoing conversations about architecture. Find more on the program via Lisbon and Buenos Aires, here.
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