The 3rd Misfits’ Triennial” WEEK 3
ArchDaily keeps morphing. Until about a week ago, it had been possible to study images in the project galleries but a person had to have a subscription to read the articles. This week, I’m being encouraged to sign up for a free subscription that will enable me to look at 50 galleries per month while before, you had to have a paid subscription to read the articles as if we all looked forward to them. Articles are now free, but clicking on Read More for a project (where you could sometimes see all images albeit interrupted by text) is now restricted. What I make of this is that ArchDaily seems to have realized that most people only visit the site for quick gratification rather than, if today’s sponsored content is to be believed, How to Make Animation Rendering Faster with D5 Render.
Previously, in this the final week of the 3rd Misfits Triennial, I tried to focus on what I saw as not just a good and useful pattern, but an antidote to some of the other patterns I see emerging and that aren’t that beneficial to as many people. It’s not just about sensitive and inexpensive repurposings but about applying the same mindset to new buildings, and the more beneficial those buildings are to more people, then so much the better. I’ve still stayed away from single-household houses and, even with residential buildings I’ve quickly scrolled past any with access that isn’t naturally lit and ventilated. If I keep eliminating entire genres, then sooner or later there’s not going to be much left worth talking about. I honestly hope that that turns out to be the case. Once this triennial is over, I’ll try to make some sense of it all in future posts. In the meantime, let’s have a look at some of what’s been submitted as architecture to ArchDaily over this past year.
This, the 3rd Misfits’ Triennial took us to June 15, 2025 which as of today (July 19) was just over a month ago. Since then there have been 25 pages of ArchDaily broadcasting about 350 projects. I will have to check out these and later ones at the 4th Misfits’ Triennial in three years’ time. For now, this is what I have.
March 27, 2025: t.house / ogawaa design studio (https://ogawaadesign.com/works_projects/s-house/)
Since I’m encountering ArchDaily paywalls quite frequently now, I can still see the clickbait images and then go to the architects’ website to find out more since, after all, it’s all their images and text anyway. This more direct form of engagement has the added advantage that the architects’ other projects are on the same site and, if anything is to be learned, it’s probably more in the way of an approach rather than some cute architectural detail or device. With this house, the premise is simple. It doesn’t matter that it’s a house. It’s called Junk House. It’s trying hard to be trashy but, being in Japan, it’s a very stylish junk house on the outside while inside it’s a usual accomplished interior. Nevertheless, the idea is there. The next step is to use actual junk both inside and outside and try to create an aesthetic out of that. It’s a faux naïvety but this still rather conscious denial of consistency and conventional notions of beauty is either the start of something or the end of something.
November 27, 2024: Circulation Retail and Repair Workshop / DDAA
A store for shoe repairs and sales inside a former house garage is something I’ve not seen before. Japan has a history of “home industry” so maybe this is a pioneering example of “home retail” but probably not. Japan also has a history of machiya [lit. city house] that traditionally fused retail and residential. The only difference is that this isn’t some traditional structure in Kyoto but a fairly ordinary suburban house. It does happen to be in Shibuya however so it’s not like this will suddenly catch on everywhere. I’m curious about the tenancy arrangements. Does the retailer live above the shop? Or is it some kind of retail air b’n’b type monetization? Either way, somebody has seen the value in some under-used space and done something about it.
October 21, 2024: Torre della Permanente / Park Associati
Apart from the pocket of ugliness that is Porto Nuovo, Milan has been spared much gruesome architecture. While walking around the city, your attention isn’t drawn to individual buildings for very long but it’s not like they all blend into a blandness. Perhaps they just blend into the city in that very Italian way of paying attention to what’s already there. This building, called Permanent Tower, follows this principle. The architects have provided many images of the building in its surroundings so it’s clear they had this in mind. Like many other fine buildings in Milan, it uses stone intelligently and because it’ll look exactly the same in 50 or 100 years.
October 19, 2024: Ventilation Tower and Ventilation Shaft / Atelier Z+
Shanghai has a few prominent ventilation towers for various tunnels under the Huangpu River and I wrote about two of them once – here. (I’ve put images below to save time.) It’s always tricky with ventilation towers because they’re as big as we expect buildings to be but they no windows and so always look monumental because of that. The one on the left has a pattern that could be the scale of a building, and openings that could be windows even though it doesn’t read as any known kind of building. The one on the right is in a more historically sensitive part of town and so once again we have an attempt to make it the same scale if not size of its neighbors.
This new one has its rectangular vent wrapped with a metal screen that, if one has to do something to make it into an urban event, makes more sense than messing with the shape. The lines could be the scale of floors but, as they’re inclined to spiral around the building, they’re probably not. The project includes a metro entrance, some retail space and something that’s probably a coffee shop. It’s interesting in that it’s difficult to say if Atelier Z+ did the right thing or not. If we accept that the tower is going to be wrapped in something then there are infinitely many ways of doing it. I don’t mind it. It’s got a lightness of concept. There’s not much in the way of precedents (a.k.a. AI training data) for ventilation towers. The architects probably did this themselves. Good job.
October 14, 2024: Le Foirail Multi-Service Center / Betillon & Freyermuth Architects + crypto architectes
I’m beginning to see some patterns emerging but whether it’s some kind of trend or just my personal preferences I’m not sure. This community centre in France is a good example that’s not from Japan for a change. Four different activities are separated by courtyard like spaces. It’s a grid. Structure and construction are clear and there is an interesting mix of timber and metal components. The enclosure is fully glazed. Partitions are inexpensive, and services and utilities are exposed. It’s doing a lot and the only major architectural incident is the large overhang that could be justified as providing sheltered space for other activities except there’s no image to suggest this. I hope it is used in this way because this overhang is one bay deep and determines the size of the metal trusses.
August 30, 2024: TAGI Hair Salon / SIDES CORE
A hair salon with some chairs and not much else. Three low partition walls have been added on the inside and a coat of black paint on the outside. It’s a very unexpected location but somehow the place looks classy and most likely expensive. It suggests we might want to pay a premium to have less architecture. We might be feeling our way towards a new retail vernacular. At the end of week two, I speculated that adaptive re-use with new uses inserted into aging and weathered and sometimes improbably buildings and spaces might be a reaction to the smooth and curvy new-build future we being taught to expect from AI. I think I’m drawn to this project because of the lack of evidence of AI being used. The header image is of House in Hakusan / KENTA HIRAYAMA ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATE. It’s what I mean by a structure with a history. [Photo: Tomooki Kengaku]
August 20, 2024: Helsingin Muurarimestari / AVARRUS Architects
This housing project in Finland does the new normal thing of having no applied finishes in access and other common spaces. The location is a pretty one compared to peripheral Tokyo but some of these apartments (the ones in the top left corners floors 2 to 5) are little larger than those of the next project in only slightly peripheral Tokyo. Much attention has been given to the exterior of this building, probably to facilitate municipal approval and keep the locals happy. The side facing the street is relatively retrained but the other sides have balconies despite them looking non-traditional. Having one more place in which to be is important when your apartment is not large.
August 13, 2024: Ookayama Housing Complex / Tomoyuki Kurokawa Architects
This one’s in Ōokayama (pronounced Oo-oka-yama – the first o is a long one). It’s where the main campus of the now Science Tokyo, formerly Tokyo Institute of Technology is. I know the street. This third week of the triennial looks like having a lot of housing projects. This one appropriates the access as a visual extension of the apartments that look they’re about 20m2. There are twenty. Floor and ceiling are concrete. Walls are plastered and painted. Stairs are metal and external. There’s no space to waste on storage. Seeing out is more important than others seeing in. Different countries and cultures will develop their own ways of dealing with similar housing pressures but Japan seems to be converging on solutions such as this. For now at least.
August 9, 2024: New Sports and Arts Centre of Hongling High School / O-office Architects
This project is a student activity centre for a high school but the high school itself has dormitories, teaching buildings, sports facilities and so on. There’s many bad things said about the Chinese system of high-school education but this student activity centre shows that it’s not all about the pressure to do well in the university entrance examinations. You could say this student centre is all about preparing students for competition or you could say it helps create more balanced students (who are better prepared for competition) or it might just be there to help create more rounded people. Education is important and buildings are important too. This building makes its occupants aware of the care that has been put into it for them and that’s important too.
July 10, 2024: Le Labo Kyoto Machiya / Jo Nagasaka + Schemata Architects
I’m only including this project because of its similarities and differences with the one after. This project is classic Nagasaka in that it’s a retail conversion that makes much of the existing building that, admittedly, is a very attractive building in a very attractive part of Kyoto. It’s a perfume shop as well as a few other things. There’s old and new and we see many raw materials. There’s nothing out of place except for some weird sense of time. It’s a contemporary store selling pricey handcrafted goods but in a building not much different from how it was in the Edo Period (1603–1867). Jo Nagasaka + Schemata were busy. I’m only in the second month of WEEK three and there’s been six projects already.
July 8, 2024: Furukawa Manufacturing Office and Factory / Jo Nagasaka + Schemata Architects
It’s not every century we see a factory presented as architecture and this one’s interesting because it’s by Jo Nagasaka + Schemata and not a conversion. Most architects will know that, when it comes to services, it’s usually less expensive to conceal them out of sight rather than install them tidily. Usually the compromise is to it’s often not often we get to see a factory interesting to compare this French project with the Japanese one below. The compromise in much retail spaces is to put it all up against the underside of the slab and paint it all black. The office space has a double height cafeteria and, apart from the occasional use of timber, that’s all there is in the way of design in the conventional sense. Of course, every single thing has been thoughtfully chosen and positioned. Is white paint suddenly pretentious and dishonest because Jo Nagasaka uses it? Is that really an asphalt floor? And is it making a statement or a criticism of bringing the outside inside? Perhaps is the other way around and the same thought that has gone into the inside has been taken over the outside? The last time we saw somebody claim car park markings can be architecture was Zaha Hadid Architects 2007 Hoenheim-Nord Terminus and Car Park.
July 8, 2024: Bagneux Apartment Building / toa | architectes associés
It’s interesting to compare this French project with the Japanese one after. Both use simple construction and materials. Both sacrifice a degree of both internal and external privacy to allow for better efficiency of layout and to borrow a view of shared space. The French one has ground floor level shutters because French dwellings have shutters and also because an appreciation of security is more ingrained and/or justified. Both make no special effort to give bathrooms a window (even though it would have been possible with the Japanese project below where the bathroom fan at least exhausts directly to outside).
June 25, 2024: Higashi Tamagawa Apartment Complex / Tomoyuki Kurokawa Architects
This is another one of those disturbing apartment buildings from Japan that just might be where we’re headed. Four floors, not elevator. No washing machines. We see windows on all levels and we the first floor is not given over to a gym or retail. Two sides of the building have other buildings hard up against the boundary. Floor and ceilings are unfinished. Stairs and balustrades are metal. Apart from everything that is white, it seems like every possible expense has been spared. The apartments are some of the tiniest I’ve seen and I find it difficult to imagine how I would live in one. Still. How to make the best if these conditions? The most obvious way is full-height glass, no internal doors and a bit of balcony space for some. The most shocking thing (unless you’re familiar with the residential projects of Riken Yamamoto) is the borrowing of the access corridor as an extension of the indoor space. It does all the social things Yamamoto has repeatedly championed in his writings and built work. Curiously, Unit 305 has two levels, possibly because there is no opportunity for a meaningful window on the lower level. This project is not easily dismissed.
We have reached the end of the post even though this leaves us one year ago in time. I expect follow-on posts will include the following:
- Some general thoughts on how AI has been hyped this past year. Three years ago the metaverse was being breathlessly promoted.
- What have all the huge names done over the past three years? The volume of their output is enormous. Admittedly, they all have aggressive marketing departments. Their business development managers have the planet covered. These offices run themselves. Oddly, apart from set text (from the architects) there’s an odd silence regarding the planetary and/or architectural worth of much of their output.
- Given the sheer quantity of built projects flooding the zone, how is one ever going to have an opinion about any of it? From what I’ve seen, ArchDaily and its ilk aren’t going to help and neither is the Venice Bienalle or Osaka Expo. We’re on our own now.
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