cultural baggage

GEDAI UNIVERSITY OF FINE ART AND MUSIC, TOKYO

The studio involved groups of students from RMIT University Melbourne and Gedai University Tokyo working together as an act of negotiation which crossed cultural and language barriers. The meeting of ideas, backgrounds and skills woven together and synthesised through the act of design.

Working in mixed teams the Australian and Japanese students were asked to design and make temple structures on the Gedai University’s Toride campus. The temples represented the complex negotiation involved in the conception of an architectural space which transcends cultural boundaries by embodying universal themes. The resulting structures were then exhibited on the grounds of the Australian Embassy as part of the Tokyo Designers Block Festival.

After the exhibition, the RMIT University students stayed in Tokyo and explored all that the metropolis had to offer, gathering information on the intricacies of the city and forming design directions for the final project that was completed on their return to Melbourne.

Tokyo is a city that strains to hold the forces of its urban morphology in place. Freeways, roads, buildings, people and design trends visibly squeeze and stretch and tear the fabric of the city. In light of these urban conditions the students were asked to develop a piece of architecture or design as a concentrated spatial act that matched the intensity of the cities dynamic. A space where global acts would be encountered and where cultural meaning and value would be challenged.