Ch. 5., pp.210–215

March 30, 2025

integrative design process, Rien Yamamoto

4. Architectural design by resident participation, and those reacting against it.

Design along with the people who are going to live there!

The design competition for municipal housing for the town of Ouramachi in Gunma Prefecture was a competition there had never been the likes of before. One of the conditions for the competition was that the residents be involved with the design, in accordance with the strong desire of Hiroshi Hara, the head of the judging panel. Hara wrote the following in the competition application guidelines.

The “Ouramachi Municipal Employee Housing Design Selection Resident Participation Design Proposal Competition” is to be conducted with the intent of gathering together the opinions of the residents and, at the same time, create world-class architecture. In order to achieve this, there must be a system whereby proposals could incorporate the diverse opinions and views of many people. Many opinions and views will be gathered and, as a result, resident-participation architecture is not meant to give mediocre results. Because of this, the architecture led by the system is expected to have some kind of new aesthetic.”

(1st February, 2001)

Some kind of system had to be proposed for gathering the opinions of the residents. The architecture produced in accordance with that system would have to surpass the conventional concepts of architecture and be an architecture with an entirely new aesthetic.

The Japanese word for aesthetic here is 美学 and, at this stage, it carries the same ambiguity as it does in English. I’m not sure if Hara meant a new visual aesthetic or a new way of configuring buildings that only incidentally happens to look different. In 1932, in the introduction to The International Style, Philip Johnson and Henry-Russel Hitchock used this ambiguity to deride Hannes Meyer for merely inventing a new (visual) aesthetic and thus contradicting his claims to be configuring buildings by non-visual criteria. The idea of a non-visual aesthetic is only a contradiction for those who can’t imagine any other. Everything tangible has to look like something but explaining the idea of a non-visual aesthetic to persons who won’t or can’t admit its existence remains an uphill battle. Let’s see how Hara fared. 　　

“Residents will be asked for their opinions and the buildings built in accordance with those opinions. This is counter to “architect aesthetic.” The debate over the opposition of those who believe architecture should be made in accordance with the needs of society, and those who believe the basis for architecture is the characteristic skills and abilities of the architect, has been around since the time of Muthesius. Henry van Der Velde (1863-1957), head of the Weimar Art Academy (that was later to link to become The Bauhaus) fiercely opposed Muthesius’ thinking, and endeavored to protect the individual aesthetic of architects. The notion that architects should be subservient to social needs created a sense of panic. The same still holds true today. The aesthetic of architects is mutually opposed to social needs. Hara’s message was that this had to change.

LEGO-like Architecture

We proposed an entirely new construction system. It was as follows. Structural units measuring 2700mm x 2700mm x 750mmm were made from 60mm steel square sections. Either panels or glass was inserted into the outer sides of the frame. This created a double-skin with a gap of 750mm. (Fig. 5, 6)

Figure 5. 1:50 model of the Ouramachih Housing (Photo: the author)

Figure. 6: FUll-size mock up of Ouramachi Housing (Photo: The author)

It was possible to use this space for the building utilities and systems. An entirely new system was used to connect these frame units. They were connected by the stainless steel tape-like straps that are usually used to wrap large packages because of its superior strength. (Fig. 7.) The strength was confirmed by testing, and the structural evaluation was passed. The aseismic performance was confirmed. This all means that the unit frames can be freely combined to make any arrangement. Not only was it possible to freely plan, a space having a beauty never seen before was created. A model used magnets to simulate the ability to attach and detach these unit frames. In other words, the structural system was akin to LEGO. The plan was to use this 1/20 scale model and create the plan together with the resident group. This proposal was highly regarded by Hiroshi Hara and the other judges and the decision was made to carry it forward.

Figure 7: Belt fasteners used for Ouramachi Housing (Photo: the author)

Although this structural system looks unconventional, the lightweight modular metal aren’o’t that surprising coming from Yamamoto. Here’s two images of the building in which he lives. His proposed construction system just has the potential for increased flexibility and faster construction. It’s been confirmed structurally and I’m sure he can think of a way to waterproof it.

Figure 8. 1:20 model of the Ouramachih Housing (Created by the author). The frames of the units could be magnetically attached and detached in this LEGO-like model.

We designed the project along with 45 residents of Ouramachi. They each had gathered together autonomously, had all lived in the town for a long time, and knew the characteristics of the locality. We made a plan and explained it to them. This plan was a 1:20 model that could be changed on the spot [because of the magnets] so that changes to the design could be implemented immediately. In total, we changed the plan about 25 times and each time was according to the will and approval of the residents. It was extremely simple to make changes. At the beginning the wants and needs were all personal ones such as “Let’s have a fountain!” or “Let’s have a large open space!” “A room for karaoke!” All manner of opinions were expressed and, while listening to each of these requests the basic design did not move in the direction of accommodating them. Of the 47 persons on the construction committee, 45 of them thought differently from the others. Those with their own way of thinking with respect to a dwelling were different from those with feelings relating to Ouramachi as a locality. However, over the course of time, there was a change as people began listening to the construction committee. This change was all due to one woman asking “Who is we are making this for?” That lady “I” said “everybody is saying things for only themselves but this building is something we will pass to our children. This building is not something just for ourselves now but a place that will be there for others in the future.” This one statement changed the opinions of the architectural committee. How should Ouramachi be in the future? “I’d like to build a place where people spontaneously gather.” “I’d like a café.” “We’d like to manage it ourselves.” “Council chambers should not just be for councillors but someplace for us to use as well.” “There is no need to have a symbolic council chambers. It is not a place for councillors to live.” All these comments reflected the wish of the residents to take responsibility for the dwellings they would make. Along with this sense of responsibility was a strong sense of the will to make it happen. This is the wish “to design a world for their children who would live longer than themselves.” (Arendt, On Revolution, p.195) In other words, there was the feeling that these new houses already had a reality of their own. This reality is the reality of perceiving architecture as being shared between themselves. Sharing means that people can experience the reality of buildings and talk to each other even if people have respectively differing perceptions. The future Ouramachi can be decided by talking about Ouramachi and taking responsibility for its future. This was the shared feeling.

I had a feeling Yamamoto was going to refer back to Arendt. Or perhaps I had automatically framed Yamamoto’s reference to “building (the things of the world) for generations to come (not as an exercise in vanity, but as affirmation of both our existence (in what will become the past) and theirs (in the future). It makes good sense, especially when compared with a never ending immediate yet continuing reality of replaceable (and hence forgettable) occupants of replaceable and forgettable housing.

For me, the experience made me wonder once again about who were the real beneficiaries of the architecture created by this design process. As a designer, the proposal was not something submitted to a bureaucracy but to the future residents, and the design changing in accordance with them. Myself and the forty five persons on the architectural committee saw this change into a reality. Everyone involved in the project became aware of this. The question of whether design was the product of some gifted individual or a case of responding to social requirements no longer had any meaning. Nevertheless, this project was the work of myself as the designer, and is the product of my will as a designer yet, at the same time, it is a space designed by the residents to speak to the future and, as such, is equally a work of the residents. The forty seven people of the architectural committee entrusts this architecture to the future.

And this is the problem with participatory architecture, community architecture, collaborative design or any of their variations. In this case, both Yamamoto and the residents (the architectural committee) can claim to be the designer of this proposal but the residents were working within a framework already established by the architect, shifting the role of the architect from designer to that of design process designer. As Yamamoto wrote, the residents felt that they were engaging with design and they were – in the sense that they could choose what spaces to have, how big to make them, where to put them and how to link them. They were designing within somebody else’s conceptual framework though, and they had no choice in that. Suppose one person had said “But I like “organic” curves constructed of some undefined white material” and another person had said “I don’t”? There’s an instant conflict (of ego, not design) as curves and LEGO don’t go. If some rules are going to be necessary, then either someone is going to have to set them, or everybody is going to have to agree on them beforehand. Both ways have problems. The former can’t be called collaborative (or whatever) and the second requires a different dimension of collaboration. If one set of people is going to set the rules for designing, then another set of people can do the actual designing and we will merely have reframed what participation means, only for it to have exactly the same problem of unequal agency. Such apparently insoluble problems suggest that the problem is poorly framed. Perhaps it’s not as simplistic as “if spaces are being designed for the public then the public should have a say in how those spaces are designed.” Even if we assume that “the public” is a homogenous entity, the first half of this sentence could be completed in any number of ways and still make the same amount of sense. “If space are being designed for the public then that public should have a say in how they are constructed, or managed, or maintained, or paid for. The meaning of the original statement all depends upon whether “have a say” means the design of the process by which that design is arrived at. Either way, entrusting one individual to make the right decisions on their behalf still remains one of their options.

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