Shohei Matsukawa: Architecture within the Flow

Recently, I have been hooked on YouTube videos of people building architecture using primitive methods. Before they even begin building, they dig the earth, build a furnace with clay, collect iron ore from riverbeds, smelt iron in the furnace, and start by making tools for processing wood, such as chisels and saws. They also build their own infrastructure for water and sewage, such as drawing water from nearby rivers, collecting rainwater, and filtering wastewater.

Today, we can drink water just by turning a faucet, and wastewater flows away when we pull a toilet lever. Products ordered on Amazon arrive the next day, and trash left at the collection point is picked up before we know it. Architecture is a "vessel" through which these various "flows" pass. However, we are usually not very conscious of the flows before they enter the building or after they exit it.

Furthermore, architecture is made of plant-derived wood and mineral-derived earth, stone, and metal. Architecture as such a "vessel" is also part of the "flow" of natural material cycles when viewed over a long period of time. However, with our sense of time, it is not easy to imagine the flow in which wood and earth circulate.

YouTube videos of building architecture using primitive methods are excellent teaching materials that visualize such invisible "flows." If both the materials that constitute architecture as a "vessel" and the materials and energy that pass through it are all within a "flow," then these videos teach us the obvious: all we can do is understand the flows surrounding architecture and slightly change the way they flow.

Since 2014, I have been involved in the design of the group of buildings at the Miraisozojuku (Institute for Designing the Future) Beta Village adjacent to SFC. Under the title of SBC (Student Built Campus), we are attempting to have the students themselves (where faculty, staff, students, and alumni are all considered "students") create their own campus.

SBC has seven activity guidelines, one of which is "Never complete it; keep engaging in trial and error." At the Miraisozojuku (Institute for Designing the Future) Beta Village, I want to continue the trial and error of understanding the flows surrounding architecture and slightly changing the way they flow.