THE TIME OF THE DESIGN
另一个时间性是设计过程。从欧洲人的角度来看，日本的设计速度和效率令人难以置信。
我不确定这种差异是否真的存在。一个房子的设计通常需要半年，建造又需要半年。建筑许可一般需要一个月。总共大约一年。这可能看起来很快，但我办公室的设计过程远远没有效率。相反，欧洲实习生总是对我们的低效率感到疑惑。实际上，我认为一个好的建筑不可能是一个有效过程的结果。我们需要奋斗。
在你的办公室里，设计过程是如何进行的?你会做实地调查吗?你做模型吗?
我和我的员工会参观场地。我经常在附近散步。与此同时，我们对它进行了仔细的调查，测量了附近建筑的所有必要细节，比如铝窗或木窗。它允许我们之后在办公室里构建非常精确的现场模型。模型并不能真正起到比较的作用;他们允许我更多调查可能性。通过这些模型，我们一点一点地发现了一系列必须融入项目的选项:气候、客户的特性、结构问题等等。因此，挑战在于认识每个方案的潜力。在我办公室的工作中，模型因此发挥了关键作用。有时人们会高估概念方案的准确性。模型挑战了它的抽象并实现了它。这就是为什么我如此信任这个模型。比起电脑渲染的逼真图像，我更信任它。当然，我们使用效果图，但只是为了项目的展示，而不是在设计过程中。设计不太关心抽象想法的实现。它发生在一个更加实用的层面上，关于如何发现和实现一个建筑理念。
项目什么时候确定?
从来没有。也许这让我的员工很不舒服。我不喜欢安定下来。我一直怀疑，甚至在施工期间。当然，我不会推翻从来，但在场地上，人们可能会发现需要纠正的错误。因此可以说，我从未停止设计，直到建筑完成。
但这也是一系列误解的根源。日本建筑在很大程度上仍然等同于优秀的工艺、合理的结构和纯粹的形式。
确实。日本建筑经常被降低到它的形式品质。也许在西方，建筑师对形式有一种痴迷，而形式只是在特定的环境下对一种特定的生活方式的答案。确实。从这个角度来看，考虑你的项目最好的方法可能是把它们看作是肖像画。
Another temporality is that of the design process. From a European perspective, designing in Japan seems incredibly fast and efficient.
I’m not sure if this difference really exists. The design of a house takes usually half a year, the construction another half-year. The building permission normally takes one month. In total, this makes approximately one year. This might seem fast, but the design process in my office is far from efficient. On the contrary, European interns always wonder about our inefficiency. And actually I think a good building cannot be the result of an efficient process. We need to struggle.
How does the design process work in your office? Do you do a field survey? Do you construct models?
I visit the site with my staff. I walk a lot in the neighborhood. In parallel, we do a close survey of it, measuring all the necessary details of the neighborhood buildings, like windows in aluminum or in wood. It allows us afterwards to construct very precise site models in the office. Models do not really serve the purpose of comparison; they allow me much more to investigate the possibilities inscribed in a program. Through the models, little by little, we discover a body of options that have to be integrated in the project: the climate, the particularities of a client, structural concerns, etc. The challenge is therefore to recognize the potential of each scheme. In the work of my office, the model consequently plays a key role. Sometime one overestimates the accuracy of a conceptual scheme. The model challenges its abstraction and materializes it. That is why I trust the model so much. I trust it much more than the realistic images of computer renderings. Of course, we use the renderings, but only for the presentation of the project, never during the design process. Designing is less concerned with the realization of an abstract idea. It occurs on a more pragmatic level, on how to find and realize an architectural idea.
And when is the project definitively fixed?
Never. Maybe this is quite uncomfortable for my staff. I do not like to be settling. I keep doubting, even during construction. Of course I don’t break down walls, but on the site one might discover mistakes to be remediated. Thus one could say I never stop designing until the building is finished.
But it is also the source of a series of misunderstandings. Japanese architecture is still very much equated with excellent artisanship, proper construction, pure form.
Indeed. Japanese architecture is often reduced to its formal qualities. Maybe in the West architects have an obsession with form, whereas form is only the answer to a specific way of life in a specific environment. Indeed. From this point of view, the best way to consider your projects might be to consider them as portraiture.
