Section Description:Students wishing to register for this course need to first obtain instructor approval by emailing the instructor (instructor emails are listed with a more detailed program description in portal: cca.edu/abroad). Once a student is approved, registration must be done in person at the Student Records Office on either campus.Open to undergraduate and graduate architecture students, this summer abroad travel studio is primarily focused in Tokyo, with excursions beyond the city throughout the Kansai region (Kyoto, Art Islands, and Nara) and the Shirakawa Village UNESCO World Heritage Site as a means to conceptualize the city’s evolution within the larger context of Japanese tradition. The studio has access to a range of internationally recognized built projects, Pritzker Prize winning design firms (Fumihiko Maki, one of the founders of the Metabolist movement), and numerous emerging practices defining contemporary Japanese architecture today.  A distinguished roster of local architects and theorists provide additional talks and on-site tours.
 
Capturing the dynamics of contemporary urban living, Tokyo challenges our preconceptions for architectural domesticity amidst rapid forces of change that are reshaping cities throughout the world today. Tokyo remains a densely-packed city ‘in the making;’ far from being a fixed metropolitan environment that clings to an abstract idea of itself, Tokyo instead moves towards an untapped future through pliable attitudes of adaptability, architectural impermanence, and uncanny inventiveness. The result is surprisingly novel formations of everyday domestic architecture and urban life. A new generation of Japanese designers are rethinking domestic space as the venue for a radical rethinking of collective forms of living. These buildings become places of personal expression and architectural experimentation, and establish Tokyo as a hotbed of innovation and experimentation unmatched in the U.S. 

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