A group of architecture and landscape architecture students spent the May session exploring how their disciplines intersect along the Tokaido corridor.
Led by Blaine Brownell (Architecture) and Rebecca Krinke (Landscape), the traveling studio analyzed the “totalscapes” of eastern Japan through site visits, photography, sketches, and cultural immersion.
Read on for observations and reflections by students on the trip; or explore the full archive on the Totalscape blog.
“For the remainder of the trip, a focus of my attention is sure to be the surfaces upon which we walk and may not walk and the ways in which they meet. Beyond the ground plane, fences of bamboo, rope, and (charred) wood have also been holding my attention. Through the combination of these simple materials, a world of expressions exists each adding specific emotion and focus, to what they bound or conceal. I’m looking forward to examining more contemporary translations of these traditional techniques and what they mean for today’s definitions of totalscape.” — Patrick Moe (Architecture)
“Japanese gardens are often full of transformations. They use of vertical (gates) and horizontal (bridges) thresholds to heighten one’s senses and frame specific views of the surrounding landscape. This act has shown me how temporal of a place these gardens are.” — Cara Prosser (Architecture)
“The trip has rendered many reactions from the class, both over and underwhelming, as to what some were expecting to experience at certain architectural works versus actuality. […] This is why I believe architecture truly needs to be studied on site to expose all of a building’s nuances that can be so easily missed in a textbook format.” — Jessica Holmes (Architecture)
Photo by Juan Morales
A guest post from landscape architecture student Luke Nichols.
As a child, Brianne Fast (Landscape Architecture) was captivated by stories of polar expeditions. It’s a fascination she’s incorporated into her studies and, in part, one that led her to spend a semester abroad in Norway at the Oslo School of Architecture (AHO) investigating the United Nation’s Man and Biosphere (MAB) program in the Lofoten Islands.
From ideation and prototyping to manufacturing and marketing, product design students learned the ins and outs of the product life cycle during a winter break trip to Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China.
