ARC3015YF (L0104)
Instructor: Yusuke Obuchi

This studio challenges conventional sustainability paradigms that emphasize continuous production, efficiency, and net-zero design. Instead, it proposes Radical Maintenance—a concept that repositions maintenance as a creative, transformative, and future-oriented design practice. Rather than focusing solely on building new, this studio will explore how care and stewardship of existing infrastructures can reshape our understanding of sustainability, time, and value.

The design site is located on Omishima Island, Ehime Prefecture, Japan, specifically the area between Munakata Port and the Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture. This landscape, once a productive mandarin orange grove, was shaped by traditional infrastructures such as dry-stacked stone terraces, monorail systems, and narrow farm roads. Over time, the site was abandoned and overtaken by dense vegetation, leaving behind a rich, terraced terrain.

The studio invites students to approach the site as a form of contemporary archaeology—to uncover and reimagine disused infrastructures and reinterpret them for new sustainable community models. Traditional Japanese construction methods—including wood joinery, stone stacking, and rammed earth—will serve as inspiration and technical grounding.  Various mapping and fieldwork will be conducted to rediscover what lies beneath the overgrowth and translate this into speculative design proposals.

A studio trip to Japan during reading week will include visits to several cities, culminating in a studio review at the Toyo Ito Museum, where you will present your proposals to the local community. You will also have the opportunity to present and discuss your work with Toyo Ito at his office in Tokyo.

Through design, documentation, and dialogue, this studio rethinks the role of maintenance—not as preservation of the past, but as an act of radical sustainability for the future.