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Course Guideline

T_ADS Architecture and Urban Design

T_ADS (Advanced Design Studies) at the University of Tokyo is dedicated to interdisciplinary design research connecting architecture, engineering, and computations to explore the ecosystems of architecture and built environments. It seeks to develop and speculate upon new knowledge for architecture, where the practice of design engages in both social constructs and material performances on a number of scales. Its goal is to redefine the role of architecture as the essential element for theorizing, conceptualizing, analyzing, forming, organizing, and generating new ideas of and for sustainable future-built environments.

To maximize the potential of the advanced research laboratories at the University of Tokyo’s Engineering School, our design projects are pursued in collaboration with specialized engineers and researchers to promote a creative environment where ideas are tested with matter and information. Simultaneously, we make analog models, digital simulations, and manipulate local molecular behaviors that make up the lifelike processes of city organizations. The focuses of our research include the development of comprehensive design proposals and explorations of the interconnectivity of urban systems based on the movement of matter, energy, and information. Our research systematically examines and speculates on the rapidly emerging and evolving contemporary built environment and its design challenges through both theoretical and specific architectural design investigations leading to a rigorous design thesis project.

Prototyping Architecture is a design research agenda which explores the generation of new models of and for architecture and urbanism. It is structured as a two-phase course; the first year studio as Digital Fabrication Lab and the second year studio as Sustainable Prototyping Lab. The main goal of Digital Fabrication Lab is the development of architectural prototypes based on the investigation of material logic and fabrication systems.

Course Organization

T_ADS is organized into two main research focuses. One is based on digital fabrication, the other based on the creation of a sustainable urban prototype. Unlike many other architecture programs, T_ADS implements longer-term projects and coursework to encourage research through prototyping as opposed to researching through study. During their time in the lab, students will participate in a two year design research project which consists of an individual project, a team-based project, and a collaborative research project with engineers, a project which allows students to expand their network to other departments. Due to the international nature of the lab, students will have the opportunity to interact with students and instructors in a unique context and can compare and learn with individuals from all across the world.

Course Outline

Degree:

Master of Engineering (MEng in Architecture)

Teaching Institution:

The University of Tokyo, Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering

Duration of Course:

24 months, full-time, Master of Engineering

Teaching Staff:

Prof. Kengo Kuma

Prof. Manabu Chiba

Asso. Prof. Yusuke Obuchi

Program Associates:

Toshihiko Kiuchi

Toshikatsu Kiuchi

Kaz Yoneda

Kosuke Nagata

Alisha Ivelich

Kensuke Hotta

Kakuko Kato

Course Structure and Details

YEAR 1

Semester 1

  • Research in Architecture 1B
  • Architectural Design 2
  • Architecture and Cities in Japan 2 (suggested elective)
  • Sustainable Urban Regeneration B (suggested elective)

Semester 2

  • Research in Architecture 1A
  • Architectural Design 1
  • Architectural Concepts and Design Methodologies
  • Sustainable Urban Regeneration A or Architecture and Cities in Japan 1 (suggested elective)

YEAR 2

Semester 3

  • Research in Architecture 2B
  • Computational Design in Architecture

Semester 4

  • Research in Architecture 2A
  • Individual Research in Architecture 1A

Design Studios

  • Architectural Design 1A, 1B
  • Architectural Design 2A (Computational Design in Architecture)
  • Architectural Design 2B (Individual Research in Architecture)

Mondays 13:00 – 18:00 & Wednesdays 13:00 – 18:00

T_ADS seeks to explore the design thinking and skills needed to capture, control, and shape an endless proliferation of information within the distributed electronic realm of today’s rapidly evolving digital design disciplines. New forms of associative logic for conceptualizing and materializing comprehensive design proposals are pursued by teams of students addressing common topics through shared, information-based diagrams, models, and scripts. Design teams act as nodes within the studio’s networks, directing the development of projects across a variety of design, production, and communication systems. T_ADS focuses on new computational design systems and requires a new generation of designers able to negotiate these complex tools, interfaces, and networks.

Design studio projects are the central form of teaching and learning in T_ADS and account for a large majority of students’ time and course load.

During their two years at the University of Tokyo, students work in the studio at Hongo Campus on projects each semester.

The organization of the classes in T_ADS leads to an increasing emphasis placed upon studio design projects. Students take a combination of design seminar and workshop classes during the first semester, which provides an introduction to important theoretical issues, design skills, and software systems. These are explored within a series of linked design workshop projects. T_ADS’ larger, longer design studio classes, with their associated projects, start at the beginning of the second semester, emphasizing complex design projects that carry forward throughout semesters two and three. Semester three focuses entirely on the design studio project (Research in Architecture 2B), which is carried forward in the form of a thesis design project (Research in Architecture 2A) the following summer during the fourth and final academic semester at T_ADS.

Digital Fabrication

Research in Architecture 1A, 1B

Fridays 13:00 – 18:00

The main goal of Digital Fabrication Lab is the development of architectural prototypes based on the investigation of material logic and fabrication systems. The course is composed of three workshops that are taken by all first-year students at T_ADS. The students explore different materials and examine them both physically and digitally to understand their material properties and behaviors. The workshops are also designated as a time for students to learn digital tools such as 3-D modelling and programming, which help them to develop physical prototypes at the end of the course.

Output: Pavilion

Sustainable Prototyping

Research in Architecture 2A, 2B

Fridays 13:00 – 18:00

Sustainable Prototyping Lab expands upon the potential of architectural prototypes developed in previous semesters and applies them to an urban setting to speculate upon the life-like behaviors of urban networks, infrastructures, and material flows for sustainable building projects. All second-year students go outside the lab to develop their own networks with other labs and institutions related to their researches. The goal of the course is the development of comprehensive design proposals and thesis books.

Output: Research Document

Design Seminar

Architectural Concepts and Design Methodologies

Tuesdays 10:30 – 12:00

While the pursuit of a design project is the central focus of T_ADS, the course’s design seminar taught during semester two is crucial both for providing students with necessary theoretical and historical background of the topics and agendas relating to the studio projects, and allowing students an opportunity to more systematically reflect upon their design objectives and results in relation to large, contemporary design discourses and the advancements of other related disciplines. This design seminar consists of weekly class sessions during which teaching staff present materials and direct discussion related to weekly readings and project analysis. Typically, each week’s session includes a presentation by students, who then lead the discussion of a weekly reading. For these presentations, students are encouraged to work on topics related to (but not identical to) their design work to expand their intellectual framework.

Recommended Elective Lecture Classes

Architecture and Cities in Japan 1 & 2

Sustainable Urban Regeneration A & B

Conducted as guest speaker lecture series courses, Architecture and Cities in Japan 1 & 2 and Sustainable Urban Regeneration A & B are taught by all teaching staff in the Department of Architecture and the Department of Civil Engineering, covering a wide scope of issues concerning architecture, engineering, and urban design. Since the discipline of architecture belongs to the field of engineering in Japan, these two lecture courses provide a foundation for the necessary technical knowledge for T_ADS students to develop comprehensive design research projects in Japan.

Elective Lecture Classes Offered in the Graduate School of Engineering

The Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo offers lecture classes addressing specialized knowledge for diverse engineering research in its eighteen departments. Although much of the research is highly specific and less relevant for the discipline of architecture, T_ADS students are encouraged to maximize the intellectual resources available at the University of Tokyo and attend lectures and classes conducted outside of the Department of Architecture.

Departments offering lecture classes in English:

  • Civil Engineering
  • Architecture
  • Urban Engineering
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Precision Engineering
  • Systems Innovation
  • Aeronautics and Astronautics
  • Electrical Engineering and Information Systems
  • Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies
  • Nuclear Engineering and Management
  • Bio Engineering
  • Technology Management for Innovation