Through design/construction of architecture, Machizukuri, and urbanism, revitalization of place is to be studied and practiced.
We plan to revitalize areas which communities want to maintain based on collaboration with communities in urban and rural settings.
Make the problems of the community your own and develop empathy which emerges by committing and working voluntarily in the making of architecture and community.
Expected action:
Compact house self-build and activation action
Yaesu, Nihonbashi & Kyobashi Machizukuri (town management) action providing self-build booths
Rural Revitalization 'Tane Project'
What we are pursuing：‘Participatory Architecture, Urban and Community Design’
Kobayashi laboratory, koblab, pursues to revitalize and enforce communities and to create new value in the environment involved in communication-based social, cultural, and spatial design stemming from the micro-culture of an area and the traits that compose its rich sense of place in local society.
Architecture and urban design has clear impacts on the community, so we strive to comprehend how form affects people’s lives. If communities are not well understood, formal interventions will not respond to the needs of the people and, therefore, they will not complement the area. We try to understand what notions of people and culture create an effective design methodology and what kinds of form create positive outcomes. We try to visualize the invisible character of communities and translate that character into form through our various projects.
We execute a broad range of projects that goes beyond traditional architectural design and construction to pursue design-build methods based on the tectonics of architecture and an understanding of the social role of architecture. We explore effective ways to contribute to society and create new social capital by shaping the form and plan of communities and planning for the future of their living environment.
In each project we visit the actual site at the right moment and closely observe the place and its people, accept actual problems agilely, and respond to the situation at the site by using a positive, analytical and creative design methodology. This process makes students commit to the problems of the community and embody them by themselves, which feeds them for the next challenge of solving the problems.
We keep on executing real projects in society and acting with responsibility to be able to commit to the actual problems of the society closely and realistically.
We are accepting application to join Hiroto Kobayashi Lab, for the academic year of 2021 fall semester according to the following conditions.
One must understand the stated goals of the lab and check the prerequisites necessary to be accepted in to the application process. Please send your essay and portfolio to the interview session. Based on this process, we will evaluate in totality and decide the participating members that will collaborate throughout the year.
If you would like to join the collaboration for the activities in the year 2021, please follow the instruction above.
Please send email to Hiroto Kobayashi and Nobuhiro Shimizu [hiroto@sfc.keio.ac.jp],[shimnov@gmail.com] to make an appointment.
Although Hiroto is supposed to study abroad and take a sabbatical in spring and fall of 2021, koblab will keep working as usual.
For either semester, please register to Prof. Shigeru Ban's laboratory.
We will conduct our laboratory activity under Professor Ban’s lab for both semesters.