I have about 15 minutes before I need to head out for dinner, so I’m afraid that there won’t be much of an ATC post today. It has been a busy week.

But given that this week was Bjarke Ingels’ talk in Toronto and many of us are pretty excited about his King West project, I thought I would share a video where he sketches and talks about architecture. Click here if you can’t see it below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIsIKv1lFZw?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

I love the idea that architecture is about imagining how things could be. That’s how I feel about both architecture and real estate development.

I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese culture.

A lot of that has to do with how design and technology seem to permeate the culture. But it also has to do with how dichotomous the culture feels to me. On the one hand they’re at the forefront of design and technology, and on the other hand they are very much steeped in tradition. It has always felt like a unique and special place to me.

So today on ATC I thought I would share a piece of Japanese architecture that I found on Dezeen. It’s a 47.55 square meter (512 square foot) apartment in Tokyo that was recently renovated by Yuichi Yoshida & Associates. 

Here are three views of the main living area:

Here’s the view from the main entrance:

Here’s the walk-in-closet/storage area (notice how the exposed concrete walls have been dabbed with plaster):

And here’s the floor plan (I’m guessing sub entrance means secondary entrance):

The first thing that struck me was the lack of a traditional bedroom. It’s basically a nook with a bed and sliding doors. But that was obviously done to give more space to the remainder of the apartment and the main living area, which they label as the “reception area.” The idea was that this space could be used for both living and working, and so they wanted a large open space.

The other thing that stood out for me was the amount of storage and shelving throughout the apartment. There’s a bookshelf as you walk in. There are drawers under the bed. There’s a walk-in-closet with floor to ceiling shelving. And if you look closely at the upper track for the sliding bedroom doors, you’ll see a small ledge that was purposefully created for storage and display.

It all seems very Japanese to me.

It’s a small space and yet there’s no absolutely zero clutter. I love how organized everything seems. For many of you, this space may be a bit too sparse (even with that hammock!). But there’s something really nice about the simplicity of it all. It’s peaceful.

Images: Katsumi Hirabayashi via Dezeen

Here’s further evidence that technology is starting to infiltrate into many other industries, including architecture. London-based architect and designer Pernilla Ohrstedt is currently working on an exhibition for Dezeen and MINI Frontiers that will architecturally visualize the 3D data that driverless cars collect in order to navigate around.

I had never thought of this before, but as a byproduct of driverless cars, we’re about to start collecting detailed replicas of all of our cities – well beyond the static images we currently have with Google Streetview. In order to navigate by themselves, driverless cars are constantly scanning their surroundings to create a “point cloud” replica of the built environment. This point cloud basically tells the car where they are, where they should drive, and what obstacles might be around.

It could look something like this:

Already there are firms like ScanLAB emerging to provide 3D scanning, publishing, and visualization services. But this is obviously just the tip of the iceberg. I can only imagine what innovation will emerge from the passive collection of all this data once driverless cars become commonplace in our cities.

As one example, it could be a way for us to systematically measure the correlation between the qualities of a street and the vibrancy of its street life. Is there a perfect width? An ideal traffic volume? A right scale? All of this data could make city building more of a science (and perhaps less political).

My hope though is that this data would be open and accessible to all, so that clever entrepreneurs could build on top of it.

What are some of your ideas?

Images: Dezeen