Designing for Continuity/Transformation (MIT Japan Design Workshop)

The central theme of this Workshop & Design Studio is the inquiry of Continuity/Transformation in Architecture and Community Form. A large topic, often culturally-based yet a phenomena that is increasingly global and universal, affecting the quality of life and the quality of the environment all around us. Within this complexity, our studies will take a slice of particularity in architectural form-giving in actual context. We are interested in the physical form and spatial quality which respond to and sustain the continuity of a people's connection to their natural surrounding, climate, traditions and long-established place-making.

While we may value notions of continuity, we are most interested with what it is about the make-up of a sound, beautiful folk architecture or the traditional urban neighborhood which needs to be maintained/sustained? Which aspects can be transformed to incorporate the emerging technology of materials and methods of construction, of an architecture closely aligned to the shifts in lifestyle, the place of the home and work, out in the street, the public environment, and the outdoors.