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6 On Site review 23 Sma l l T h ings

Im interested in the connection between your small-scale preoccupations

and your larger scale urban research. Do you feel that there are appropriate,

effective ways to shift from the small scale to larger scales, or vice versa?

In terms of scale, the biggest programs can also be embedded in

the small scale. This idea always encourages me to be brave or

proud to be working at a very small scale. I like to deal with large

issues through a scale that can be really handled, because you need

a good ear to hear the echo between a very small thing and a bigissue. I really like to make this comparison. Showing the sound of

the echo between this and that can be sometimes very enigmatic,

sometimes elegant . . .

. . . and sometimes humourous. In a recent essay you wrote that, when

designing a small house in Tokyo, its impossible to have an effect on the

city and so it is allowed to be dreamlikean object of our imagination.

Ive always felt that your small work are somewhat eeting, maybe even

suitably incomplete. Theyre not microcosms of grand concepts you seem

more concerned with articulating this echo relationship . . .

I learned this from Jean-Luc Godard, when he was criticised

by French journalists for not going to Vietnam to shoot a lm;

instead, he stayed in Paris. And Godard said, its not necessaryfor a lm to go to Vietnam, but the more important thing is to

let Vietnam pour into the lm. This is an issue of echo. I like very

much this attitude to the world, that you cannot be representative

of the whole world, but you can create an echo with it.

yos h i h a ru tsukamotoon p e t a r c h it e c tur ethe micro-urbanism of atelier Bow-Wow

MICRO-URBANISM |TOKYO

BY STEVE CHODORIWSKY

sca le

in terrupt ion

echoes

body

space

Much of your work focuses on a serious consideration of small space as bona

de spacenot as something nostalgic or cute, but rather as a contemporary

fact, something both useful and enjoyable. What are your thoughts on this?

I think smallness can be a very strong tool for directing a design.

For me, the very important thing is to handle the differences that

emerge in every level of architectural composition and articulation.

So if you want to make even a simple composition between

rooms, some differences already emerge. Each room is just aroom, but once theyre connected, their relationships create great

differenceswhere you go in, or where you look

it becomes complicated very quickly

It starts to be full of difference through these things. I think that,

currently, the architectural discussion in Japan is based on how

to deal with these small differences: how much you rationalise

inevitable differences, how much you avoid or accentuate given

differences from the outside environment, like site conditions or

sunlight. If you start to be conscious of these changes, you need

to break down levels of understanding into smaller elements and

dimensions. For example, if you are aware of the temperature,

this part of the room is really different from over there near thewindow. The light condition also changes. This is my interest

with smallnesshow to open up these kinds of different

investigations, to understand the different qualities of space.

House + Ate l i e r Bow-Wow

[arch i tects ] Ate l i e r Bow-Wow

[locat ion] Shin juku-ku, Tokyo

[s i te a rea] 109 .03sqm

[bu i ld ing a rea] 59 .76sqm

[tota l f l oor a rea] 211 .27sqm

[s t ructu re] re in forced concrete and s tee l f rame

[photo] Ate l i e r Bow-Wow

A Pr oj ec t

[a rch i tects ] Ate l i e r Bow-Wow

[ locat ion] Tokyo

[photo] Ate l i e r Bow-Wow

a conversation about small things conducted in March 2010 at the TsukamotoLaboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology Department of Architecture

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7Sma l l T h ings On Site review 23

th ings you might l i ke to know but never have the chance to ask : Ate l i e r

Bow-Wow i s a t rans la t ion f rom the Japanese Ate l i e r Wan , wh ich i s ,

natu ra l l y enough , the sound a dog makes in Japanese . Doubl ing the

wordp lay , Wan wr i t ten in phonet i c Japanese , i s homonymous w i th One.

The concepts Pet Architec ture and Micro Public Space come up consistently in

your activities. With them, how do you feel smallness is linked to promoting

good spatial prac tice?

I am interested in the concept of smallness as it relates to body

consciousness a relationship between space and the body. Since

most of our basic understanding of urban space for everyday living

is very segregated, life becomes quite mechanical somehow. All the

pieces are articulated as a kind of packaged service within the city,and if you have enough money, you can enjoy this itinerary, visiting

these packages, one by one. The body, though, is something

which tries to go beyond this controlled experience, through

inventive spatial practice. In certain places, right when the body

goes beyond this package, you can feel like you have discovered

the earth a kind of wild aspect of the living condition of human

beings. I like very much the feeling of de-packaging these services.

So if you buy a house produced by Sekisui [an industrialised housing

company] in a new suburban development ninety minutes from

Tokyo Station by train, your whole life could be packaged. But on

the other hand, in Pet Architecture buildings, which we found to

be very interesting, dont t into this framework.

Yes, although they lack size, they retain extremely customised functions, and

also personalities.

Their time and space are not served by anyone or anything,

theyre really there, and this condition is irreplaceable. And the

participation of the real body really supports the existence of that

combination of time and space. This is quite strong for me; it

stimulates my sensibility of urban living conditions today. Our

intention was to show Pet Architecture as the foregroundI thinkit is often just pushed to the background.

Do you think they play the role of urban monuments?

Yes, I think its a kind of micro-monument, a witness to the

transformation of the city. I found that Pet Architecture emerges

out of specic contexts, where new or enlarged streets cut through

old urban fabric, or, in spaces where the geometry of curving rivers

or railways encounter orthogonal street patterns. They always

appear at very unique points where these interventions occur.

In that sense, they denitely have a monumental aspect. And

people are really fond of these buildings, they become imprinted

onto individuals memories. If you ask someone to talk about Pet

Architecture in their neighbourhood, they can usually mention atleast two or three really tiny buildings . . .

Compared to an individuals daily routine, which you frame as a series of

complete packages, Pet Architecture becomes a kind of jarring interruption.

This tells of an insufciency or incompleteness in these buildings.

But this also allows them to open to the environment thats an

important quality. They cant be closed-off systems; they must be

helped by other buildings . . . I really like the generosity of Tokyo,

which allows these kinds of structures. The city doesnt want to

clean them up, or force every building to be formal. Of course

new construction must t to regulations, but still, they can keep a

feeling of informality . . . v

ate l i e r bow-wow