Re-inhabit architecture

I’ve been asked from University IUAV of Venice (from the curator professor Maura Manzelle) to intervene with a lecture to a post-graduated master on the theme of Re-inhabit architecture. The Lecture will be held the 29th of May 2021.
The entire title of the Master is: Re-Inhabit architecture; Strategies, tools and processes for the project on existing buildings. The Master is directed related to the EU vision 2050 : No Net Land Take. The EU vision focuses on avoiding the consumption of the soil giving guidelines and strategies in order to use as much as possible the existing building heritage. (https://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/no_net_land_take_by_2050_FB14_en.pdf)

Actually I will be involved in two different lectures: one of them is just in support to Mr Kuma explaining projects from KKAA related to renovation and refurbishment (22nd of May) while on the other I’ll be presenting with Takeshi Yamamura, Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture at the Tokyo Polytechnic University & Co-founder of YSLA Architects. The second lecture will be entitled:

Renovation of 20th century residential building for a new type of living, The Japanese approach.

Here below a little taste in bullet points of what the lecture will talk about.

This lecture will be divided in three chapters:
1- Why talking about Japanese houses in an Italian context?
2- The evolution of the Japanese House from Tradition to innovation
3- How the Japanese approach could be used in the Italian context.

1 - WHY TALKING ABOUT JAPANESE HOUSES IN AN ITALIAN CONTEXT RELATED TO RESIDENTIAL BUILDING RENOVATION?

- Japanese architecture as a reference point to the entire world since the modernism. Bruno Taut, Frank Lloyd Wright, Carlo Scarpa, Antonin Raymond, Charles and Ray Eames, Mies Vand Der Rohe, Rudolph Schindler …
- Japan has the greatest number of Pritzker price, 8 in total.
Arata Isozaki 2019, Shigeru Ban 2014, Toyo Ito 2013, Kazuyo Sijima and Ryue Nishizawa 2010, Tadao Ando 1995, Fumihiko maki 1993, Kenzo Tange 1987.
- Japanese architecture has a very different approach to Renovation and Re-Use. Renovation is a relatively new concept in Japanese Context.
The Example of the Grand Shrine of Ise rebuilt every 20 years from the new generation of Carpenters (old carpenters teach to the new carpenter how to build it).
- The average life of a house in Tokyo is 26 years vs 100 years of an House in Europe.
- House construction technology in Japan: balloon frame construction . There is a tendency of demolishing and reconstructing at every generation. This also justify somehow the reason behind the particular self-tailored and experimental houses in Japan.

- Italy and Japan: similarities though data:
Japan and Italy have the most elderly population in the world; 1st Japan and 2nd Italy.
In both countries most of the families are composed by two parents and only one child.
In both countries the number of people living alone are increasing. The number of families are increasing but the members of the families are decreasing.
Both countries are facing an economic crisis (and have a huge public debt) and an impoverishment of the middle class with young couple unable to buy a property.
In Both countries we are facing a gradually depopulation of the rural area in favor of the big cities (Milan and Tokyo) > Houses for 1 Euro.
BUT if Japan, in some way, was able to adapt, react and respond to these changes, Italy seems to move a bit slower, relying on old typologies, inappropriate residential spaces and with a rigid residential market.


2 - THE EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE HOUSE FROM TRADITION TO INNOVATION

- Flexibility in space usage has always been part of the Traditional Japanese houses.
- From immediately after the WWII until today The Japanese House has become The Main experimental element in Japanese architecture dismantling all the previous concept of Typologies, living condition, dimension/scale, flexibility of the space ,…

SMALLNESS
The result of the subdivision of the land in smaller plots was a city without voids composed by extremely small units small unrelated to each other or to the exterior (Densification of the city and reduction of the open areas). The house in this new scheme occupies the entire site > only 50cm between buildings. Numerous problems related to the proximity of the buildings (air circulation and introspection).

Examples of small and introvert Japanese houses :
……….
NEW TYPE OF LIVING SPACES
Despite some good examples the majority of the these small houses are lacking space quality and have lost any kind of relation to the exterior and to the city.
“1 person apartment” is the main Typology in Tokyo (50%)

Above: the cover page of “Tokyo Style” by Kyoichi Tsuzuki .
The Author spent 2 years documenting these “closet-size” apartments whose occupants uses their neighborhood as an “extension of their living room”

Above: a capture of the movie “The box man” from the novel by Kobo Abe.

BUT Recently some Japanese architects have tried to recreate again the relation between interior and exterior typical of the traditional Japanese houses (relation lost in the small units after the plot subdivisions) generating a quality space despite the compressed volume.

> Examples of Japanese houses where the architect and the client experimented new types of living spaces:
………

3- RENOVATION
In this chapter we will present some good examples where architects re-thought the space for a new type of living.

………..

CONCLUSION
HOW JAPANESE APPROACH COULD BE USED IN THE ITALIAN CONTEXT:
- Some data regarding residential building in Italy compare with Japan
- Description of the changed in the society and the need of a different typologies of apartment : Families composition, ageing of the population, immigration and mobility
- Demand and supply in Italy does not match.

THE JAPANESE LESSON
- Flexible layout
- Quality space in a small volume. Increment of Urban Density”
- New society means new type of living and new typologies.

Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting , 1974