1. ALEX, WELCOME TO I D̶O̶N̶'̶T̶ DO INTERVIEWS! HOW ARE THINGS IN TOKYO RIGHT NOW?

Hi! Firstly I would like to thank you for your continued support over the years, it has been a very perilous, yet inspiring journey. To answer your question, things are simply fine in Tokyo, nothing more, nothing less. Life is extremely convenient in terms of everyday needs, and the general population silently and unquestionably follows the imposed covid rules. That being said, it seems there is a collective depression slowly accumulating due to the progressive erosion of a unique living environment, with many small independent shops disappearing and not getting replaced with anything new.

2. HOW HAS THE PANDEMIC PERIOD BEEN WORKING OUT FOR YOU? HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED ANY DRAMATIC CHANGES IN YOUR DAILY ROUTINE DUE TO COVID-19?

My daily covid-induced routine is as follows:

Wake up (hopefully before the afternoon)
pretend to work ("research")
take a nap ("ideation")
dinner time (main input of food)
complete the actual work at 3am ("can I make the project only in CG since nobody will be able to visit it?")

I would say the pandemic period has been both the most productive and unproductive moment for me personally. I do not think I could have completed such a large amount of projects in such a short time if I had other things to do other than sitting in front of my workstation all day. Due to the pandemic especially, I no longer have any physical meetings or events requiring dressing up and going to some place. Everything is online, and at any time, from a comfortable corner of my apartment. Even most food is delivered from the local restaurants now. Hopefully this will change very soon, but I already feel tired thinking about getting dressed properly from now on.

3. LET’S TALK A BIT ABOUT THE PROJECTS YOU’VE BEEN PART OF LATELY. FIRST OF ALL, THE INSTALLATION THAT RESULTED FROM YOUR TEAM’S (THE OBUCHI LABORATORY TEAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO) COLLABORATION WITH SATO LAB. WE HEAR THAT THIS TEAM PROJECT HAS BEEN RECENTLY AWARDED THE GOLDEN LION FOR BEST NATIONAL PARTICIPATION AT THE VENICE BIENNALE. COULD YOU SHARE WITH US A FEW DETAILS ABOUT THE DESIGN OF THIS CONSTRUCTION PLUS YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE PROJECT?

Firstly, I think everything would make a bit more sense if I quickly explained what digital fabrication is and how it came to be. The notion of fabricating, constructing with digital systems is now a relatively old concept and has closely followed the development of the computer since, let's say the 1950s-1960s, to be broad, with the very first representations of 3D space through a handful of polygons. Digital fabrication was sought after to bridge the gap between digital and reality, by translating this 3D representation into a physical construction with absolute exactitude. This eventually led to a mass adoption of digital fabrication laboratories by universities all over the world, driven by a strong economic incentive to develop faster, cheaper, more precise, and in recent years, formwork-less digital construction processes as the ultimate tool to convert design to reality with seemingly no constraints.

What Obuchi lab and Sato lab set out to do with the Venice Biennale project was reverse the design process. Rather than translating digital to physical, we wanted to leave it to the contractors who were tasked with building the pavilion to decide how the structure should be assembled. Of course, we still had to respond to some design constraints and requirements as per the curators' needs and wishes, but in an ideal setting, the pavilion visitors would be the constructors, and we, the developers of the pavilion, would have no control over the design. I personally compare this kind of process to that of vernacular construction. Humans have perpetually demonstrated their design and construction capacities, but are no longer allowed to make use of them due to not conforming to established structural and safety standards of the current era.

The construction system that I developed for this project was therefore designed from scratch to foster real-time community involvement by applying computer-assisted augmentations to the user's inherent intuitive construction capabilities, rendering the act of building more accessible. I wish I could provide a more detailed description but that will have to wait until the research paper on the subject is compiled and published.

4. NEXT ON MY LIST IS “GOLDFISH ARCHITECTURE”, ALSO A TEAM PROJECT EXHIBITED AT THE SEOUL BIENNALE EARLIER THIS YEAR. I WAS CAPTURED BY YOUR DESCRIPTION OF IT AS “SUSTAINABLE AND THERAPEUTIC ARCHITECTURE”. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL US HOW THIS IS EXPRESSED IN THE PROJECT? ALSO, WHAT ARE THE OBJECTIVES AND THE MECHANICS BEHIND THIS INNOVATIVE ARCHITECTURAL SYSTEM?

The initial conception by 'kouhai' (後輩 - lab juniors) of this project actually predates the pandemic and was therefore designed in a much more 'naïve' time dare I say. The project originally stemmed from the very common practice throughout southeast Asia of taking care of small aquatic animals and plants contained within the smallest of spaces. The aim was to take advantage of this already established and readily adopted practice and transform it into a highly localized aquaponic producer of food with almost no climatic impact due to the symbiotic relationship between fish and plant. I personally don't quite understand why this care for fish is a common practice and considered therapeutic, and was only later brought onto the project to develop the IoT control systems.

It only became apparent to me with the pandemic that the design of small things like this project are a very important thing to have in one's life. Even if it helps us just 1% to calm down and take a step back, it's enough. Though we are all probably sick of designing pavilions based on this system after having to deal with all the issues of having a border suddenly closed between Japan and Korea during preparation for the Seoul Biennale, I am leading the further development of the project for ‘SIGGRAPH Asia’ Art Gallery based on the aspiration of digitalising this act of care, and concretising it as a collective and interpersonal ritual. This will be launched very soon on the 14th of December 2021 and I hope many people will feel the urge to participate online (but not too many so my webserver doesn't crash).

5. ON ANOTHER NOTE, "ARCHITECTURE WITH SOUND” EXPLORES THE WAY SOUND CAN BE APPLIED TO ENABLE SPATIAL NAVIGATION. YET YOUR TEAM NOT ONLY EXAMINES THE SYSTEM’S CONTRIBUTION TO IMPROVING GUIDANCE BUT GOES SO FAR AS TO SUGGEST THAT IT CAN ACTUALLY ASSIST IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN. EXPLAIN TO US HOW.

A fundamental requirement of contemporary, computer-based architecture is of course the translation of space from 3D representation to construction. Architecture with sound was the subject of the joint master's thesis I did with Yiyuan Qian, fellow computational architect and partner. We felt extremely constrained by the 3D tracking technology we employ in our digital fabrication research which limits the digitally augmented work area to a single room, or a warehouse at most, if you have enough budget to rent the Hollywood-grade mocap systems. It was only natural to develop a technologically equivalent system that works on a much broader scale, specifically the urban scale in our case. The equivalence being the ability to precisely track XYZ position and absolute rotation of a single point (the user's head) in 3D space. This is basically equivalent to a VR headset.

Why sound, though? This stems from prior lab projects in which senses other than sight were studied and utilized as construction tools. It is also much less intrusive when the main concern of testing such a system is to avoid getting hit by cars. Nonetheless, due to the surprising precision of our ears, I classify sound in the same category as visual virtual reality. Claiming that 3D tracked sound can assist in (classic) architectural design would be a stretch. Rather, it is a tool that enables the interfacing of our very senses with the virtual infrastructures that are progressively being integrated into urban environments all over the world. In this sense, it is not really a tool for direct architectural design, but instead a way for individuals and communities to intuitively interface with, and take control of their immediate and interpersonal surroundings. It allows users to adopt the urban fabric as their own uniquely appreciated environment. I think that this is one of the main building blocks of architecture and an emerging form of architectural design that I look forward to participating in (as long as it is not accomplished by exclusively private entities).

6. DO YOU THINK THERE IS SUCH A THING AS PURE SOUTHEASTERN ASIAN STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE ANYMORE OR ARE WE MOSTLY TALKING ABOUT A GLOBALIZED APPROACH?

I find it to be somewhat a stereotype to assume that globalization brought forth a homogenous and standardized style. If anything, it couldn't be farther from the truth. Globalization has only demonstrated one thing and it is that we suck at defining standards. Rather than a streamlined and efficient process, we have only succeeded in producing an amalgam of poorly defined construction methods that rarely work in the climates they are deployed in. In this sense, yes, we have lost a significant amount of the expertise of community-built architecture that was once based on highly localized environmental requirements (wind), material availability (wood), and a highly skilled workforce (master artisans). That being said, when looking at generic 'non-design' housing, you can still see a clear difference in composition and scale that makes the architecture unique to the region. I only wish that a more globalised approach would be taken to increase the amount OF living space as the current standards are not at all enjoyable.

7. CONSIDERING THE ONGOING CLIMATE CRISIS AND THUS, THE INCREASING DEMAND FOR SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS, WHAT ARE, IN YOUR OPINION, THE GREATEST CHALLENGES FOR ARCHITECTURE IN THE NEAR FUTURE AND WHAT WOULD YOU PROPOSE AS POSSIBLE COUNTER-ATTACK STRATEGIES?

The greatest challenge for architects in terms of sustainability is to stop designing half-assed junk destined for positive press and government grants. Architecture relies far too much on other disciplines for research and development, without even bothering to talk to these researchers. It is like refusing to study for an exam, hoping that it will be cancelled, even if there is absolutely no reason for cancellation. The harsh reality is that it requires an insurmountable amount of work, but nobody is willing to do it. Architects aren't researchers, and researchers aren't architects. And this is a problem as all the other industries have already had decades to slowly iterate and optimize their workflows - cutting back on waste by single percentage points each and every year. The only thing architecture can do at this point is iterate, iterate, iterate. I sincerely hope that digital fabrication will be able to help accelerate this very much needed iterative process.

8. NAME EXAMPLES OF HOW EVERYDAY LIFE PROVIDES YOU WITH THOSE SO-CALLED ‘EUREKA’ MOMENTS, THAT IS, FLASHES OF INSPIRATION THAT LATER FIND PRACTICAL APPLICATION IN YOUR LAB/DESIGN WORK.

I think that transitioning from architecture to engineering has made me painfully aware that there is no real 'eureka' moment. It is really just absorbing all forms of media like a vacuum and gaining the confidence to say if there is a feasible solution for a presented issue. I am not going to lie, my entire knowledge in engineering stems from YouTube, GitHub, Stackoverflow, and weirdly Twitter.

9. HOW HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR WORK EVOLVE SO FAR AND WHAT ARE YOU SETTING YOUR SIGHTS ON PROJECT-WISE FOR THE YEAR TO COME ?

I feel that I have gained enough confidence in the last year not to be confined by my knowledge of software and programming, allowing me to instead look more into what I want to convey in my research. For the year to come, I will be focusing exclusively on my personal PhD research. So, smaller projects initially, like revisiting 'architecture with sound' to develop new uses (and optimistically research publications), and later writing, writing, and writing.

10. WHAT QUESTION WOULD YOU HAVE LIKED US TO ASK YOU AND WHAT WOULD BE THE ANSWER?

"Are you an architect?"

No. :)