2025Year

Second Semester

Learning from Tokyo

Lecture

Learning from Tokyo

Z2000009 Learning from Tokyo

NISHIMORI Rikuo,KEARNEY Michael

2.0Credits

Thu.3Period

Shinjuku Campus

A-0471教室（大学院工学研究科）

A) A high degree of specialized expertise　100%
B) The skills to use science and technology　0%
C) The ability to conduct research independently, knowledge pertaining to society and occupations, and sense of ethics required of engineers and researchers　0%
D) Creative skills in specific areas of specialization　0%

This course will utilize conceptual, theoretical, and analytical models posited in Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour's "Learning from Las Vegas" as a foundation for an investigation into the Tokyo urban environment. Concepts that will be examined will include, but not be limited to: symbolism in architecture, signage, concepts related to, and the utilization of, space (internal and external – closed and open), the relationship between speed, focal point, and communication, urban/sprawl patterns, and the relationships between architectural systems of space, structure, and program and the image, or the symbolic.

The course will begin with an examination of "Learning from Las Vegas" using the Socratic Method: this will elicit a thorough, personal, and practical understanding of the myriad notions addressed and presented in the text within each individual student. Students will then conduct field work at locations in Tokyo and its surrounding areas and present their work in class: students are expected to apply, in their own unique way, the concepts discussed in the course in order to demonstrate a keen understanding of the materials. As a final project, students will select a location (of their choice, but approved by the instructor) within the Tokyo-Chiba-Kawasaki-Yokohama Megalopolis. The project will include: the background of the site, an analysis of the current state of the site, and a proposal, with design, that will enhance the vitality of the site.

No Prerequisite

Discussion Debate／Presentation

Weeks 1 – 4: Examination/discussion of "Learning from Las Vegas" and other relevant architectural and urban design concepts
Week 5 - 6: Fieldwork and application of course's concepts to architectural and urban designs in the Greater Tokyo Area
Weeks 7 - 8: Presentation and discussion of Fieldwork
Week 9 - 10: Further development of course's concepts and application to myriad architectural and urban designs, workshops
Week 11 – 12: Fieldwork and design and development of students' individual projects, workshops
Weeks 13 - 14: Presentations of students' projects
Week 15: Revision and submission of students' projects

Grades will be determined through class participation, fieldwork, and projects.

In class verbally and in comments on projects.

None

None required; suggestions:
Learning from Las Vegas: Revised Edition; Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. The MIT Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1977.
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture; Robert Venturi. The Museum of Modern Art, New York: 2016.
The Architecture of Tokyo; Hiroshi Watanabe. Edition Axel Menges; Germany: 2001.

Shinjuku Campus (A-2737): Thursday 17:45 - 18:45 and by appointment.

Learning from Tokyo will help you develop your analytical processes in relation to the structures and planning of urban and suburban environments.

Not applicable

Not applicable