The Red Dot School

2024

「魚を捧げ、
鳥を放つ」

佐木島で開催される14日間の建築スタジオ。

5月20日月曜日正午12時から6月2日日曜日正午12時まで、日本標準時(GMT+9)

10月7日月曜日正午12時から10月20日日曜日正午12時まで、日本標準時(GMT+9)

2024

“Giving A Fish, Releasing A Bird”

A 14-day architecture studio held on the island of Sagishima.

Monday, May 20th at 12pm to Sunday, June 2nd at 12pm, JPT (GMT+9)

Monday, October 7th at 12pm to Sunday, October 20th at 12pm, JPT (GMT+9)

「裸の島」1960年
“The Naked Island”

土地

佐木島(さぎしま)は、西日本の瀬戸内海にある小さな島です。その面積は 8.72 km² で、おおよそ東京ディズニーランドの 8.5 個分、ゴールデン ゲート パークの 4 個分、またはセントラル パークの 2.5 個分に相当します。東京駅から新幹線+フェリーで5時間弱。  佐木島には約650人が暮らしています。多くの人々が島で小規模な農業プロジェクトを運営しています。柑橘類、野菜類、花、塩、海藻などのユニークな品種です。かつて、島の耕作地のほぼ全体が農業生産に使用されていました。

1955年、佐木島の人口は約3000人。木造貨物船を建造したり、家族経営の農場を営んだ人もいました。戦後の人口爆発によって佐木島は、居住者と観光客で溢れ返る様になりました。島の住宅の大部分が、新建材をはじめとする新たな産業建設技術によって建設される様になったのもこの頃であると考えられます。

Land

Sagishima is a tiny island in the Seto Naikai (“inland sea”) region of southwest Japan. Its area is 6.3mi², roughly equivalent to eight and a half Tokyo Disneylands, four Golden Gate Parks, or two and a half Central Parks. From Tokyo Station, you can get there (by bullet train + ferry) in under five hours.

There are around 650 folks living on Sagishima. Many people there operate small-scale agricultural projects: a unique varietal of citrus, sweet potato, green onion, flowers, seaweed & salt, among other things. At one time, almost the entirety of arable land on the island was used for agricultural production.

In 1955, over 3600 people lived on Sagishima. Some built wooden boats, others operated family farms and fisheries. The post-war population boom means that the majority of houses on the island were built using emerging industrial construction techniques and ideas of prefabrication, as interpreted / executed by local craftspeople.

2020年 鷺地区・鷺港
Sagiura District, 2020

小宇宙

佐木島は実に美しい場所です。外から来る人々に対する温かさ、協力性、そしてレジリエンスといった独特の文化を有する場所です。都市的な経済成長から切り離された地域コミュニティを象徴しています。過去 100 年以上にわたり、機械化、標準化、労働のグローバル化の波が、島、土地、建物に影響を与えてきました。しかしながら、昨今の劇的な人口減少の結果、島の家屋の半分近くが空き家となり、その一部は深刻な荒廃状態に陥っています。

建築材料を島に運ぶためのロジスティクスコストが、島に強力な「システム境界」を与えています。そのことから、わたしたちは佐木島を「小宇宙 - マイクロコズモ」と捉えることができると考えます。本プログラムは、島の物質的生態を調査することから始まり、事前にピックアップした空き家の詳細な分析へと進みます。

Microcosmos

Sagishima is a place of striking beauty, home to an island culture of resilience, cooperation and warmth towards the curious outsider. It is also a synecdoche for so many other rural Japanese communities that have become divorced from urban modes of economic growth.

Over the last 100 years, waves of mechanization, standardization, and labor globalization have inscribed their repercussions on the island, onto the land and into the buildings. As a result of population decline, nearly half of the island’s houses are vacant, and many have fallen into severe states of disrepair.

The logistical expense (and headache) of getting building materials to Sagishima is an invitation to think of the island as an architectural microcosm with a strong system boundary. Our work will begin by examining the material ecology of Sagishima, and proceed to a close analysis of several houses that have been marked for careful deconstruction by The Red Dot School.

佐木島灯台・港の見える丘公園
Sagiura Lighthouse & Overlook Park

循環分析

ワークショップの期間中、私たちは島の労働に参加し、地元の友人たちと一緒に食事をし、スタジオの分析的および予測的側面を実施します。島の景観と生態系、および社会構造に関する重要な理解を表すドキュメントを作成します。 また、プロからのアドバイスを受けながら、島の空き家の解体プロセスデザインを行います。 空き家の1/25模型を作成し、アップサイクルの可能性を詳細に分析します。それを基に、それらのマテリアルを再結合することで生成されるコンセプトモデルをデザインします。これらの成果物を「島への贈りもの」と捉え、島に住む人々に対してプレゼンテーションを行います。

Circular Analysis

Over the course of our workshop, we’ll participate in the labors of the island, eating meals with our local friends, and conduct the analytical and projective aspects of our studio. We’ll create drawing sets that represent our critical understanding of the island’s landscapes, ecosystems, and social fabric. Working with a local construction firm, we will produce deconstruction plans for vacant houses on the island. A physical model of the house will be created for the island's gallery, and will also be duplicated as a kit of salvageable / reusable parts. From this kit we’ll design concept models that recombine all scraps into a new possible whole—an architectural gift for the island.

須ノ上地区(私たちの近所)、2022
Sunoe District (our neighborhood), 2022

鳥を放す

このプロジェクトの核心は、佐木島の唯一の小学校に通う生徒たちです。レッド・ドット・スクールは、これらの子供たちと彼らの教師と共に、私たちのスタジオの作業と交差するデザインカリキュラムを開発しています。学校の子供たちは、島の建物が敬意をもって丁寧に解体された後に喜びを持って行われる「儀式」の創造について私たちに助言しています。これは、島の建設前に行われる地鎮祭の新たな転換です。地鎮祭では魚などがその土地に捧げられます。私たちの解体の儀式は、空き家と関連する憂鬱さやネガティブなイメージを払拭するのに役立つものを目指します。生徒たちとの共同作業で、私たちは儀式のためのグラフィック、装飾品や正装、そしてプログラムデザインを行います。

Releasing A Bird

At the heart of this project are the students currently attending Sagishima’s sole elementary school. The Red Dot School is working with these children and their teachers to develop a design curriculum to intersect with the work of our studios. The schoolchildren are advising us on the creation of a “ritual”, to be performed during the  careful deconstruction of a building on the island. It will be an inversion of the traditional ground-breaking ceremony performed prior to construction on the island, in which a fish is caught and offered to the site. Our deconstruction ceremony must help dispel the melancholy and stigma associated with ruined houses. In collaboration with the students, we’ll design regalia, paraphernalia, a graphic language, and a spatiotemporal program for the event.

鷺浦小学校の児童たち          
Sagiura Elementary School students

プログラム
Program

私たちの学校は、佐木島が属する三原市と協力して、島の建物を解体し船で運び出して焼却するという従来の方法に代わる参加型の循環型システムを構想し実践します。2024年には、佐木島にある市所有の木造平屋建築を、佐木島を拠点とする谷本建設の助けを借りて解体し再利用する予定です。その建物は「賃貸住宅」として使用されていましたが、2021年以降は使われていません。この解体イベントは、2024年の私たちのスタジオの中心に位置します。

Our school is working with the city of Mihara (of which Sagishima is a part) to develop a participatory, circular alternative to the practice of demolishing rural island buildings and removing them by boat, to be incinerated. In 2024, we’ll be deconstructing and repurposing a city-owned building on the island with the help of the Sagishima-based Tanimoto Construction Company. The building is a two-unit “rental house”, which has been in disuse since 2021.

この解体イベントは、2024年の私たちのスタジオの中心に位置します。私たちの仕事は以下の通りです:

🞄 建物と現場に関連する社会的および物質的歴史を視覚化する(A)。

🞄 祝祭をパブリックイベントとして開催し、建物を慎重に解体することで、使われていないことや放置されていることへの偏見を払拭します。2024年に扱う賃貸住宅の場合、土壁と屋根瓦を取り外し、木構造を残す方法を取ります。

🞄 木構造を曳家(ひきや)することで新しい場所(B)に移動し、新たな用途を生み出します。

This deconstruction event sits at the center of our 2024 studios. Our work will be to:

🞄 visualize the social and material histories associated with the building and site (A).

🞄 hold a public, celebratory event in which the building is carefully dismantled, helping to dispel the stigma around disuse and neglect. In the case of the “rental house”, we will remove the earthen walls and the rooftiles, leaving the timber frame intact.

🞄 move the timber frame by hand down the road to a new site (B), where it will find a different life.

解体と家の移動に加えて、私たちは佐木島で進行中のマッピング/データプロジェクトへの貢献も行います。特に注目すべきは、島に点在する88の小さな神社です。

Alongside the deconstruction and relocating of the house, we'll add our contribution to an ongoing mapping / data project underway on Sagishima. Of particular interest are the 88 small shrines that dot the island.

私たちは、これら88の神社を特定し、カタログ化します。そして、それらの場所の歴史を掘り下げます。私たちは、島の「デジタルツイン」へのポータルとして、島の88の場所を使用します。これは、島の歴史を地理にリンクさせるデータセットで、スプーンのレベルまで詳細に記録されています。各サイトは建築的介入のための挑発であり、理想化された佐木島の風景に存在する、規模不定のアップサイクルされたケーススタディオブジェクトです。これは、無限の祭りを経験している島です。

We'll locate and catalogue these 88 shrines, delving into the histories of their sites. We'll use these 88 places on the island as portals to the island's "digital twin": a dataset that links the island's history to it's geography & geometry, down to the level of the spoon. Each site is a provocation for an architectural intervention: an up-cycled, case-study object of indeterminate scale that exists in an idealized landscape of Sagishima, one that is undergoing an infinite festival.




年主任講師

Lead Instructors

Momoko Kono

Bachelor of Architecture
Kyoto University
Master of Architecture
Kyoto University
Co-founder & Principal
Tsumiki Design & Construction

Nao Kono

Bachelor of Architecture
Kyoto University
Master of Architecture
Kyoto University
Co-founder & Principal
Tsumiki Design & Construction
Instructor: ”Makers on Making”
Tokyo University
Instructor: ”DECON/RECON”
Tokyo University

Bryan Ortega-Welch

BA, Education
UC Berkeley
Master of Architecture
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Researcher
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Designer
Certain Measures
Instructor: ”DECON/RECON”
Tokyo University

さらにスペシャルゲストも。

Plus special guests.

詳細

Details

(日本語)

Each year, we work with a small cohort of students (around 12-16 per studio) who join us on the island of Sagishima to draw, model, research, eat and play. Our cohort is a mix of international students and Japanese nationals. It contains a range of professional experience: design practitioners who have already earned their professional/final degree, students making their way through/towards undergrad or grad school, career-changers, & curious non-architects from adjacent professions interested in creative reuse.

We will hold two studios this year: at the end of May (in the mildest season, prior to the rains), and again in mid-October (coinciding with the island's end-of-summer festival).

Our studios are conducted in English, but our students speak a variety of languages. We design our lectures and course content with this in mind, using clear language and replacing text with images and diagrams whenever possible. Students assist each other with translation, and we also find that our participants congeal into an exciting international cohort that develops its own common visual language.

We take pride in the diversity of cultures and identities that intersect within our studios, and work to make sure all students feel comfortable, safe and happy while on the island with us.

Date/Time
Monday, May 20th at 12pm to Sunday, June 2nd at 12pm, JPT (GMT+9)

Monday, October 7th at 12pm to Sunday, October 20th at 12pm, JPT (GMT+9)

The studio will begin and end at Mihara Station, Mihara, Japan. We’ll meet there at 11:40am on day 1of the course, and return to there by noon on day 14. The studio will be conducted on Sagishima.

Fees
A fee of $1560 per participant is required. This includes lodging, breakfast and dinner on Sagishima (essentially everything you'll need while on the island is covered, with the exception of lunch). Every year, we are able to offer a little bit of tuition assistance to excellent applicants who are in need of it. After the first round of acceptance letters have been sent out, we calculate how much financial aid we can offer based on student enrollment and the budget of our studio. If you are in need of financial aid, we encourage you to apply as early as possible, and mark the checkbox on our application form. Once accepted, we'll contact you swiftly about tuition assistance.

Accomodations
Students will stay in the Sumifuku House (one of the buildings we're taking care of on the island). It is a two-story home with room to sleep about 14 students in various tatami rooms.

Design work, lectures, and lunches with special guests will be held in Kakumeisha, our nearby school building. An 18-tatami meeting hall, it's the oldest standing public structure on the island.

Meals
Students will make breakfast for themselves in the Sumifuku House. For lunch, we'll either eat out while exploring the island, or order bento boxes for a small fee from an island chef and eat them at our schoolhouse. We'll cook dinner and eat together each night.

For dinner, we make delicious Japanese meals using local ingredients whenever possible. We are able to offer a vegetarian option of the main dish at each meal.

If you have specific questions regarding meals or accommodations, please include those with your application form.

Technology
The design work of our studio can be completed with or without recourse to a computer, and students are welcome to sketch, draft, and model by hand for the entirety of the course. All work will be photographed / scanned at the end of our studio, both for the island archives and for your personal use. Students who wish to work digitally are welcome to do so, and will have the change to print their work as well as digitally project it for presentation and critique. We will offer extra tutorials for students with a special interest in:

_ developing parametric workflows that help increase & broaden the reusability of salvaged materials on the island
_ creating virtual worlds
_ "digital twin" dataset management



Our application process has two rounds. The first round will close on
Sunday, August 25th, 2024, at 11:59pm JPT (GMT+9).

We offer a tuition discount of $60 to admitted students who submit their applications during the first round. We love early applicants - they make planning our studio so much easier. We will send out first-round acceptance letters by Sunday, September 1st at 11:59pm JPT (GMT+9).

If there are remaining spots, the second round of the application process will close on
Sunday, September 8th, 2024, at 11:59pm JPT (GMT+9).

We will send out second-round acceptance letters by Sunday, September 15th at 11:59pm JPT (GMT+9). In the rare case that we still have spots available, we'll hold a third round, to be announced.

To apply or inquire, please drop us a line and we will send you our 2024 application form:

Lastly, please take a peek at our insta & blog to see what we're up to on the island.