Looking back on nine years from the perspective of architecture and management

Masaru Ito (I): SHIBAURA HOUSE was built in 2011, after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Now, the coronavirus is spreading around the world. As society and the world of work are undergoing enormous change, I want to hear your reflections as we go through what has happened until now.

Your words back when we completed SHIBAURA HOUSE are burned into my memory: “If it lasts for three years, then it’ll do six. If it lasts six years, then it’ll do 12 years.” In 2020, it will be nine years, but to be honest, rather than feeling like a big success, it feels more like we simply continued to take small steps.

I think I just continued to be positive and to think about all the various things that we could do with this building. Because the whole building is covered in glass, and it feels as if the outside world is streaming in, I am constantly stimulated to think, “We have to adapt” in my daily work.

Kazuyo Sejima (S): I think when I said that, it came from a friend telling me, “If it lasts for one year, then you’ll manage three,” when I started my own architectural office, and that really encouraged me. Lots of things have happened in the past nine years. And of course, coronavirus has been a really huge phenomenon within that.

I: Yes. People have disappeared from the city. The number of people who drop by to use the free space have dwindled, to about a third of what it was before. I’ve been struggling to work out what to do with SHIBAURA HOUSE for about six months, but now I’m thinking about creating an initiative that supports people’s everyday lives in some way.

For example, grocery shopping continues to be an essential part of people’s lives, so we started selling vegetables on the ground floor. It’s not just a standard store; we’re also doing in a zero-waste way. Also, the other day I met a farmer in Tokyo, and he told me that we could actually grow quite a lot of fruits and vegetables in our own building.

S: That’s interesting. Since we moved to our new office, we have started growing a few different vegetables. We’ve started growing bitter gourd and passionfruit because these leaves create a green canopy that shields from the intense summer sunlight.

What the people in the area truly want

I: We’re thinking about making the floors above the second floor into a farm. Like a local farmer’s market, we’d have people come in freely, pick what they like, pay for it on the lower floor, and then consume it locally. Just like the vegetable store we started last week, it might encourage people who have so far not been coming to visit a little more. And whatever we don’t sell, we can cook up to make a meal for our neighbors on Fridays. I think it would be really good to create this kind of cycle.

S: There’s a lot of young families in Shibaura, so I’m sure there’s a lot of people interested in having this kind of farmers market, maybe organic produce.

I: Yes. Also, Minato-ku has asked us if we could do a revitalization project around the Shibaura Canal, and at the moment we’re proposing to them that we make a vegetable patch and a composting area. We’re thinking of making our own building a kind of laboratory, a place to communicate information and our thoughts, that would maybe connect to other initiatives.

S: I think it’s really important to have a visible and tangible space to show what you’re doing, rather than simply doing the activity just by yourselves. For example, by the canal, it would be great if it could become a space for people to gather and to achieve something together.

I: When we finished the building, and I asked you what kind of people you wanted to use the building, I remember that you told me, ‘Children’. You said that you wanted children to understand that it’s possible to do all these kinds of things, and that has finally become a familiar idea to us as the time passed by.

S: When I was designing the building, I understood your plans and what you were saying, but I was also wondering if we could do something really ambitious, really out of the box. There was a time when we talked about increasing the floor area, but in the end we went with the original concept and design. However, if you thought it possible, it would be nice if we could extend the terrace out into the surrounding area more. If we could have a staircase outside the first floor, perhaps we could make it so that it will allow people to go straight up to the terrace.

I: Oh, you mean to have an outdoor staircase? I hadn’t thought of that. But people with a good imagination want to do all kinds of things when they come here. Actually, that’s why it still feels new to me. People who weren’t involved wouldn’t think that this building was created a whole nine years ago, and I also feel the same.

S: Well, it’s being used with care, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops, depending on how it’s used. I’m able to see that it’s finally becoming what we wanted to see, after nine years. One thing we wanted was that it wouldn’t be an ordinary office, and that it would be connected to the local area. Another was that it should be made ‘open’ in various ways, and so lots of new things can be born from it.

Current system that binds our sensibility and our ways of thinking

I: Maybe because of that, we are able to accept the situations we find ourselves in simply as the circumstances, and somehow turn it into a positive opportunity. There’s not many buildings that can do that. If we were a normal office, what we could do would be limited, and realistically, we might have thought about selling it to someone or making it into a rental building.

But I think we can still use this building in a different way. In a positive sense, this building is a good plaything: it’s not just somewhere you work, but actually a space we can play around with while connecting it to our work.

S: If you try and do it with the same kind of redevelopment, or if you try and apply the same logic to do it efficiently, I think the balance will be lost. When it comes to trying to guarantee a predetermined outcome with a limited amount of money, and the construction method has been decided, and you have to take out insurance… I feel completely in a bind. I think when people feel trapped like this they feel like they just have to get through.

However, even though disasters happen, I think it’s really nature giving us a warning that things are out of balance. I think our sense and ways of thinking have become too restricted, and things are getting worse.

If I wanted to do SHIBAURA HOUSE in the most efficient way possible, I would have increased the floor area to the very maximum possible, and would have increased the size of the rental rooms. And maybe not have created a garden, because doing so not only reduces the floor area, but also increases the work of waterproofing and maintaining the outer walls, and it costs extra money. But by making a garden, you enable people who are living quite ordinary lives to gather together in a different kind of space.

You could think, with coronavirus, ‘Oh no, is this the new normal?’, but even a little while ago, it was impossible to imagine that the whole world would come to a standstill so quickly. When I was designing I was just doing it in a fragmented way, like, oh, it would be nice to be able to walk up to the top instead of using an elevator, and oh, it would be nice to have a garden, that kind of thing. Little by little I have begun to see what each of these decisions have come to mean. And now, we are seeing a new way of gathering.

How to respond to changes in society

I: When the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami happened in 2011, I think it was a turning point for lots of architects, yourself included. Do you feel that the way you look at things has changed, or has the word or concept of ‘architecture’ changed for you in some way?

S: When the earthquake happened, I realized that we humans are animals too. How should we interact and engage with nature? Because nature can overwhelm and overpower us. We couldn’t do anything but watch the tsunami wash away everything. That was the biggest shock for me.

So, instead of only thinking about how architecture can successfully interact with nature, I started to think about how to make a building that is one part of a town or city in which everyone lives together. With corona, everyone is saying that we have to stay away from each other, but I think that’s putting it backwards. I think people in every single field should be thinking about how people can be together without causing problems.

Like I said before, instead of creating a situation in which we have to design while feeling like we’re in a complete bind, everyone should take a little more risk and think about creating a space, or city, in which we can be together.

In order to avoid making dysfunctional architecture

I: I often cycle past the new National Stadium. I’m sorry for using this as an example, but because of the virus, it’s lying unused, after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were postponed. The whole building had a single purpose, that is, for the Olympics, or for sports, and so has ended up becoming simply a symbol. It might have been a different story if the building’s design requirements had been defined differently.

S: Yes, indeed. This just popped into my head, but imagine if it was made into a park where anyone could go in. And maybe there wouldn’t be any competitions, but people could just use it freely.

I: Yes. For example, in the case of a disaster, it could also be used as an evacuation center. Perhaps if the owners of the building asked for the buildings to be used in different ways, or to be able to respond to changing circumstances, the direction of architecture would change. I feel like your proposal was closest to that in sentiment.

S: Yes! (laughs). Right now, architecture is only required to be perfect within a certain ‘frame’. And there are many cases where if the situation shifts even slightly, it becomes useless.

I: It’s an obvious thing to say, but buildings are really fixed, material things, aren’t they. With the world around us changing so much, it’s very difficult for them to respond to the changes. That said, the more I think about it, the more I think that one day we will see a different kind of architecture, emerging on a different level.

S: Yes, that’s an interesting idea. A building that different people want to use in all kinds of ways. And a building that allows itself to be used in all those different ways.

Architecture that responds to the surrounding environment and time

I: We’ve talked about SHIBAURA HOUSE’s nine years of history. I suppose that you are aware not only of movements in architecture in Japan, but also what international architects are thinking about and the directions they’re moving in. What kinds of changes and movements do you see?

S: From a while back, I feel like there has been more of an effort to use local materials when building. From my side, I would really like to talk about low-energy and sustainable designs from Asia. About ten to twenty years ago, there was always a contest for ‘Think about energy’ at international architecture competitions.

A lot of people were pushing the idea that, for example, when you used glass, you should use triple glazing, which makes it very thick. However, you might not lose heat from the building itself, but I wondered about how much energy was used while making the glass.

In contrast to the energy conservation logic cultivated in northern Europe, in Asia I would like to create a system which makes the entire process sustainable, right from production. This is one example, but I would like to think about the specific environment that we’re living in, rather than being caught in a single perspective.

Architecture is what updates

I: Once, I had a conversation with a European architect about why your designs were so highly acclaimed in Europe, and the architect gave me the exact answer. In most buildings, the inside and outside are considered separately, and while the inside is cooled using air conditioning, outside, the building is radiating heat. Whereas when you design, you incorporate the surrounding environment and work well with it. In Europe that seems to be a perspective that hasn’t existed until now, and I still remember today how the architect said it appears fresh. But what about architects in Japan? What’s going on at the moment here?

S: I think for young people, it’s no longer an age for building new things, but rather using and adjusting what already exists. However, I do think that even while you’re using existing buildings, you have to create something new on top of that. For example, if you were to remake SHIBAURA HOUSE in 20 years, the people involved would have to break or get rid of some parts, and create some new parts. I’ve begun to think that buildings are things that are renewed.

And not just through human intervention, but also through being influenced by their environment. The buildings I’ve designed may look like newly built, but, for example, this was originally a concrete building, and the company inside continues to do what the owner’s father did. A building is not only itself, but also its relationship with, for example, the roads, the surrounding buildings, and the view of the canal from here. The building is as it is because of everything that has happened in and around it until now, and I think it would be wonderful if something new and powerful comes out of it in the future as well.

Designing a landscape that changes everyone, starting with one building

I: When I asked you to design SHIBAURA HOUSE, you had already done the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa. I was aware of the term ‘open architecture’, but I didn’t really know what it meant in concrete terms. What it meant, where it was going to. What I’ve noticed recently is that it’s not enough for interesting things only to happen inside a building.

That interesting ‘something’ has to spill out into the local area. And so ‘open architecture’ really means designing a whole landscape or area that will change people. That’s why I’m so grateful that Minato- ku got in touch with us, and why I’d like to take what we’re doing to the canal and the park, and hopefully that will help local people to understand how to use the architecture. And then, I think it would be great if not only us, but also the people from the city office, could also have the opportunity to think about how to approach the area by using SHIBAURA HOUSE.

S: SHIBAURA HOUSE is doing some really fun stuff, and I hope that that will create some sparks that will fly out into the cracks and gaps in the local neighborhood, and inspire people to think, ‘Oh, I’ve got a little space in my housing complex. It’s a bit far away from everything but let’s do something with it’. And if they have some trouble setting up their own initiatives then they could come and get some advice at SHIBAURA HOUSE.

I: If you’re able to connect the essence of nurturing those kinds of projects to administrative, educational, and economic activities, then I think it would help everyone open up. I think that ‘open architecture’ really means that a single building can open up the local area or city.

We can change where we live, how we want

I: Building on what we’ve talked about so far, I’d like to ask you about architecture education. I remember you saying before that it would be good if architecture students would go on to work for the government, and then there would be architecture graduates on both the commissioning and commissioned side. What are the ingredients you need when you’re designing architecture?

S: In fact, it is odd to call the user, who should be the protagonist, a ‘user’. What is important is that people become aware that they like things through using them, and the feeling of creating our own city by ourselves. I would also really love it if the user received some education about architecture.

Then I think we could make even better towns and cities. Also, I think it would be good to have architecture as an element of generation education. Even if you don’t get people drawing blueprints, there are a certain number of people who are interested in architecture and read magazines about it, for instance, and learn about both Japanese and international architecture and its history. And if there were more of these people, that thought about their own areas, then I think that cities would increasingly be shaped by their citizens.

Accompanying the lives of people

I: Actually, a while ago, I went to the Hitachi City Hall, which you designed. I think the people at the city hall were really passionate, and they came to SHIBAURA HOUSE three times during the planning process of their own office, to learn about us and our process. We only went to the city hall for a short time, so I wasn’t able to get a full picture, but I’m really looking forward to seeing how the office affects the surrounding area. As you said before about the user’s perspective, there is a sense that the area like the plaza underneath the big roof creates a space for the people in the office to find their own ways of using the space. It would be great if the users and the architects could create a constructive relationship.

S: Yes. And my hope is that, when I leave, I can think of myself as a citizen of Hitachi, even if I’m not living there. And when I think that, I’d like to be able to imagine the city hall as one of the symbols of the city.

I: In SHIBAURA HOUSE’s case, I feel like we will be testing to see how far we can permeate the lives of local people. Until now, in a sense, it was made up of rental spaces that more or less ran themselves, and even people who weren’t close by could come to an event if it interested them. But now, because people can no longer freely move around, we have to think about what interesting things we can do in the immediate area, for local people. Groceries, commuting, traveling to school, going to the hospital: if we could add something to these kinds of everyday activities, I think we could use SHIBAURA HOUSE in yet another different way.

S: One more year and it’ll be the 10th year anniversary, won’t it. I don’t know what will happen from now, but in these ten years, many problems have come to light. And I think this year people have really become strongly conscious about creating a good environment where they live. Instead of simply complaining about the situation, we need to take action and do something. Of course, it’s difficult to take sudden action, so you need to get the community involved. Then you will begin to understand where you stand.

I: Yes, that’s right. I really feel now that with COVID-19, people are starting to question the state of society as a whole, and also individuals’ mentality. As you say, at the same time as having a perspective on what architecture can do, I think new possibilities will open up if we think about what we can do together with architecture. That’s why, in a positive sense, I would like to set aside what I’ve done so far, and think calmly about the next step. That said, in reality I’m still frantically flitting around every day!

Kazuyo Sejima

After graduating with a masters from Japan Women’s University, and working at Toyo Ito & Associates architectural office, she established Kazuyo Sejima Architects in 1987. In 1995, she established SANAA with Ryue Nishizawa. Her recent works include Umebayashi no Ie, Inujima “Art House Project”, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa*, the ROLEX Learning Center*, and the Louvre Lens*. (Projects marked with a * were made by SANAA).

She was the general director of the 12th Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition. She has received many awards, including the Architectural Institute of Japan Award, and the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Masaru Ito

Born in 1974. Graduated from the Department of Media Art, Kyoto University of Art and Design. He joined Kohkoku Seihan Inc (currently SHIBAURA HOUSE Co, Ltd) in 2005. He has been CEO since 2010.