Kingston University Architecture students, led by tutors Takeshi Hayatsu and Simon Jones, will be designing and building a new temporary pavilion to be exhibited in summer 2016 in the grounds of Dorich House Museum, working with the renowned Japanese architect and architectural historian Professor Terunobu Fujimori.
The UK and Japan both have unique and rich craft traditions in which old craft skills and knowledge exist alongside mass production within contemporary society. From the point of view of the design and production field, the prolific advancement of digital fabrications and 3D modelling technology necessitates redefining the role and meaning of handmade objects and their physical/material presence.What does it mean to make things by hand today, and how can it avoid becoming nostalgic and pastiche? ‘red school’ is the title coined by Terunobu Fujimori for certain types of Japanese architects whose works are characterised by the handmade, and deep sensual and tactile qualities of their buildings.
The family tree of the ‘red school’ can be traced back to the Takamasa Yoshizaka’s Inter University Seminar House project in 1965, which Kingston University students are interpreting into the new pavilion. A symposium being held at Dorich House Museum will be the forum for discussion of the history of the ‘red school’ in Japan and its relevance to the contemporary practice of making in the UK.