I-AUD | International Program in Architecture and Urban Design

ADS-C 2021 Davisi Boontharm Studio

Tokyo Reading-With, Reading -to and Reading in-between
Collaborative learning by making Design-Research Studio

In response to Europe Readr: the Future Living
https://www.eunicglobal.eu/news/europe-readr
The idea of outdoor urban reading.

That generic basis will be variously interpreted within urban practices of Tokyo,resulting in diverse spatial and cultural contextualisations of a basically same
programme.
The studio emphasis is on in-between spaces which question public-private boundaries,and the continuum of thinking – making – living that advances the established qualities of everyday life within Tokyo, stimulating the emergence of new quality.
The primary focus is, thus, on the residual (Lefebvre) and infraordinary (Perec) in residential precincts of Tokyo. While power strives on quantification and
monetisation, the residual cherishes life, subjective and qualitative aspects of existence. We seek human scale, eye-level, the reach of human voice – being-with
(Nancy), reading aloud.
Being research-driven, the functioning Reading-With: an EU Readr project, Asia 2O21 will not only inform but also stimulate critical thinking. It will ask questions. These questions will confront the reduction of the urban to narrow econo-centric and technocratic aspects of life, opening up their capacity to support full, rich urban life. The intention behind this approach is the one that frames every design enterprise – to help imagine and eventually live a better world.
When not reduced to passive consumers or users, citizens have both the right and responsibility to shape social, aesthetic, environmental and political realities of their communities, from which identity, the singularity of their urban environments emerges. This project aims to set up such potential (in 2O21) and then to navigate and explore the actual outcomes (2O22-2O24).
The activity of reading, initiated by the EU Readr project, here gets expanded towards community awareness – as reading-with, reading-to, reading aloud. Reading in languages– plural. That will generate a number of collateral qualities, arising from various dimensions of (in)comprehension and (un)translatability.
In that context, Reading-With, Tokyo 2O21 adds a very special nuance to the EU:Readr project.

Institutions

|Keio University, Tokyo Professors D. Radović, S. Sano (1 student)
|Meiji University, IAUD, Tokyo, Professor D. Boontharm (4 students)
|JWU – Japan Women’s University, Tokyo, Professor D. Radović (7students)

SITE
LIONEL
JENNIE KARTIKA
XIAOWEI JI