Ch. 4, pp.159-163

• The week has housing unit layouts but there’s no shock revelation. What is shocking – and there are examples – is how closely the “designed” housing adheres to the standard designs “made available” by Tokyo Municipality Bureau of Housing Policy. This of course is Yamamoto’s point and, though I know nothing of Yamamoto’s history of dealing with the Tokyo Municipality, I can feel his frustration and it feels personal. I don’t know how this book is going to end, but it looks like challenging the governmental systems providing housing didn’t make any difference at all.

• • • 

In Bureaucratic rule, the principle is to not think

Bureaucratic rule is exercised in the materialization that is architectural design. The Bureau of Housing Policy of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government requires designers to use the standard designs supplied by them as the basis for their designs.

Those at the tail ends of the bureaucracy that demands the standard designs are merely the distributors. To date, the principle of that distribution has been simply confirmation and execution. The standard designs are never questioned. There is no thinking, merely the execution of a command. There is no thinking in the “simple administration that is bureaucratic administration and thoughtlessness is the guiding principle of the executors.” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.16) (In passing, this same term thoughtlessness is used in Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem (p.221) Arendt writes that thoughtlessness was the reason for the greatest criminal of the time. (p.221) crime that a person of the age could commit.) Yet, thoughtlessness is required of designers that follow commands. The reason for this is that they are (no more than) uniform labouring individuals that work to obtain wages. This is because they (are no more than) persons that engage in standardized labour. Excellence is not required of them. Thinking is not required of them. They are nothing more than units of uniform labour. This is what Arendt means when she writes “The space that is society” “anonymizes excellence”. (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.73)

“Society expects its members to have a certain kind of behavior and put in place many and diverse rules for this. The observance of these rules is standardized (= normalized) for its members has the expectation of its respective members who are made to behave in accordance with standards and autonomously act to not produce excellent results. (ibid., p.64) Here, behaviourˆ means acting in the customary manner. It is standardized behavior. It is the behavior of designers who design on the basis of the standardized designs given from the end points of the bureaucracy.

This mutual relationship of thoughtlessness is the essence of bureaucratic rule. Bureaucracy does not mean that thoughtlessness exists only internal to the bureaucracy. It is a system for its amplification. Arendt writes that “Persons caught up in a bureaucracy are already guilty.” (Arendt, Re-evaluating Franz Kafka, p.99) The side that gives the orders and the side that follows them are both complicit in crime. Designers (contractors) are also brought into the thoughtlessness of bureaucratic rulers. Despite that thoughtlessness already being a crime, they do not notice. The consciousness of their guilt has already been made thoughtless

The process of materialization is governed by bureaucrats and the very relationship between rulers and ruled is made thoughtless.

4. Standardized Space

Housing policy to standardize the population

Below are layouts of standard designs for municipal housing. (Figure 1) It is required that designers reproduce them as faithfully as possible – and not just the layouts. The structural system, the facilities systems, and practically all of the details have been standardized. Tokyo Municipality publishes detailed design manuals such as “Standard Design Drawing Collection” and designers design in accordance with them. These standard designs were finalized before architectural designers entered the process. The role of the designer is equivalent to tracing those standard designs. There are details for the frames around doors and windows, how to place insulation, how to make handrails and so on are all standardized.

Of these layouts, the one for the 2DK seems better because the kitchen has a window to the access corridor. A person in the kitchen can at least be aware of people coming and going, even if the frosted glass window is shut. At night, persons in the access corridor can see lights on and so the presence of other people. It’s not 100% horrible. In this layout, it’s possible for a person in the access corridor to look into the unit and through the kitchen to the living area but view of a sleeping space is blocked by the bedding storage cupboard – the oshiire 押入. The bathroom and wc also have the potential for a window as well but this is good practice anyway and the shafts can be contrived to make it happen. I haven’t bothered to translate the names of these spaces as it they should be obvious. The only thing I think I need to mention are that the room with the bath is entered from the laundry room, and the word 廊下 (rōka) doesn’t denote a corridor as we know it, although the function is the same. The lack of wall space in the living rooms in any of these three layouts implies that most living takes place around a small table in the centre and/or a kotatsu (those small low and invariably square tables) in one of the tatami rooms.

Figure 2 below shows layouts of municipal housing designed in accordance with the standard designs.

This comparison is interesting for how little attempt for innovation there is. The two bedroom 2DK unit above left has small windows to the w/c and bathroom but the 3DK of the muncipal housing examples had this too. The only improvement I can see is that the deep structure puts those windows maybe 40 cam away from the corridor instead of abutting it. This becomes important if the storage room (納戸, upper left) in the 2DK is used as a bedroom. Bedroom and bathroom windows opening directly onto a corridor may not feel like the physical manifestation of the privacy Yamamoto is talking about when these rooms are on the inside of the front door, but then there is another door that definitely seals the remainder of the unit off from even these areas. 　

There is hardly any remaining scope for a designer to think. Unique or excellent ideas are not asked for. “Autonomous action or excellent ideas are not anticipated.” This is why a low fee is acceptable. This is the design of Tokyo municipal housing. This is what it means when The Bureau of Housing Policy at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’ says “municipal housing is typical architecture based on standard designs”.

Designers must comply with the standard designs. Complying with the standard designs is the social role of designers.

Accordingly, living in such standardized housing makes the occupants conscious that they are standardized occupants the same was any other. In Europe soon after the First World War, and in Japan immediately after the end of the second in Japan, regulations and practices were the most important means for housing to standardize the population. As can be seen by simply looking at the layouts, the feature is the two kinds of privacy of the privacy (gap) of the unit (household) with respect to the outside, and the privacy (gap) of each room. This type of privacy is a continuation of the privacy that was a feature of Albert Cottages and the labourers housing at Mulhouse). It is a mechanism of rules and practices.

The providers of municipal housing in Tokyo seem set in their ways for reasons we’ve been alerted to. Some architects have found ways to work within that system at the expense of their own integrity, and other architects have created entire worlds for themselves outside that system and detached from anything that matters. I don’t know how this book will end but I don’t think Yamamoto was asked by Tokyo Municipality to advise on how their housing offerings could be redesigned for the better.Yamamoto’s architectural priorities haven’t changed much over 40 years. I’m sure he’s wondering what value a Pritzker Prize has if its recipients ultimately have so little agency to use architecture to effect meaningful change.

It’s easy to see how all the layouts in this post suggest, if not force, an identical way of living. They’e cultural constructs and Yamamoto’s point is that these constructs have been imposed top-down to manipulate the workforce into submission. It seems the workforce simply can’t win. There’s much to be critical of in this municipal housing but what’s astounding is that Japan still had municipal housing as late as 2015. The Western solution for some decades now is to provide none at all, inflate the housing market to make workers grateful for any housing they can afford, and then make them fear eviction if they don’t work hard enough to service their loans or their rent. In the end, what we have are two different ways of ensuring the same worker compliance, even if the Japanese way is less obviously brutal.

I used to naïvely think early 20th century worker housing was a noble endeavour of governments and architects working together to improve the lot of their people and their countries but I never gave any thought to what strings came attached. Did social housing or worker housing or affordable housing for even exist if it didn’t support the economy? We’ve known the answer for about 40 years now and it’s no. It’s not a case of architects fleeing the sector but of the sector being disappeared. Riken Yamamoto has probably made his peace with this but I still want to read on and see what hope he sees. I don’t envisage renewed respect for workers on the horizon, or even an acknowledgement they’re even necessary for, increasingly, they’re not. New technologies never seem to create jobs. Think of all the ones that have disappeared.

• semi-skilled workers in factories instead of skilled craftspersons
• machine production in general
• elevator operators, key punch operators, typists, television repairmen, bus conductors, travel agents, bank counter clerks, shop assistants, shops
• the robotization of the automobile manufacturing industry
• manned call centers
• the automation of automobile driving, the prospect of driverless taxis
• online teaching, tablet teaching through applications and games
• the early 20th century romance with factory made housing
• the mid-20th century romance with prefabricated housing
• the early 21st century romance with 3D printed housing 
• CAD and an accelerated design process with fewer workers
• BIM and an accelerated design process with fewer workers
• AI and an accelerated design process with fewer workers

• • • 

2024/10/06 Ch. 4, pp.159-163
2024/09/29 Ch. 4, pp.156-159
2024/09/08 Ch. 4, pp.152–155
2024/09/08 Ch. 4, pp.146–151
2024/08/25 Ch. 3, pp.135–143
2024/08/18 Ch. 3, pp.128–135
2024/08/11 Ch. 3, pp.120–128
2024/07/21 Ch. 3, pp.115-120
2024/07/21 Ch. 3, pp.108-114
2024/07/14 Ch. 3, pp.101-107
2024/06/30 Ch. 2, pp.92-100
2024/06/23 Ch. 2, pp.87-92
2024/06/16 Ch. 2, pp.78-87
2024/06/02 Ch. 2, pp.69-78
2024/05/05 Ch. 2, pp.66-70
2024/05/05 Ch. 2, pp.58-66
2024/05/05 Ch. 1, pp.46-55
2024/04/28 Ch. 1, pp.35-46
2024/04/21 Ch. 1, pp.23-35
2024/04/07 Ch. 1, pp.18-23
2024/03/31 Ch. 1, pp.14-18
2024/03/24 The Space of Power vs. The Power of Space: Preface pp. 7-11

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Revisited this week:

• Misfit Architects #5: The Futurists
• The Asakura House
• The Floating World Part II