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- [00:04]
A
A home is to do with your necessity. I've not been very good personally with sort of home as an idea of an investment. It's sort of home stemming from the idea of your own needs and, you know, what do you need? I find that if you just chase status, it becomes much harder to define this environment as a home. I've lived in so many different spaces, sometimes in a dormitory, which is not mine at all, obviously, and you live there for a year or something, but you spend your time with this act of homing, keeping things quite light, keeping things quite light footed and touching the earth quite gently.
- [00:51]
B
Hello, welcome back to Homing. Today is a foundations episode and I'm in the studio with, with the architect Takiro Shimazaki. Takiro spent his early years in Japan, but he's lived and worked in London for many years now. He's designed some very elegant private houses, some of which I've been to, and one of them was nominated last year for the Sterling Prize, which is basically architecture's equivalent of the BAFTAs. They're not big or flashy, they, they're much more thoughtful and understated. I think he's the ideal person to talk to about the idea of enough and the philosophy of making do with what we already have. Takero grew up in Japan where there's a long tradition of embracing imperfection and accepting that things age naturally. He tells me that he still wears the cashmere jumpers he inherited from his grandfather. And he extends this idea to homes. In his view, we're not really owners at all, we're just borrowing things for a while. We explore what this philosophy means at home, how we might touch the earth more lightly, how to create spaces that feel calm and private even in the middle of a dense city, and how things like light, proportion and boundaries influence how we feel. I hope you enjoy listening. Hi, Takero.
- [02:23]
A
Hi.
- [02:23]
B
Thank you for being on homing. This word home is such a beautiful word with so many different connotations. How do you see that word? How would you define it?
- [02:33]
A
The more I think about it, it's quite a hard word or hard concept to define. I think it's quite a complex kind of idea. But your title of homing, you know, this act of making a place home resonates a lot with me. At first I thought it's something that's very private, something personally for me it's something very personal, subjective and yeah, a place that's really comforting and calming for me to do things that are, yes, very private, but at the same time the more I think and with what connect to what I teach or what I do in practice, it is also some. Something quite public. You know, I think of sometimes city as extension of your living room in that, you know, if so home is like a base, like your bass pad, like a core. Yeah. Foundation space. But then, you know, I go and play tennis, I go and, you know, watch a film, I go to an art gallery and. And sometimes I feel like I am in a living room, in my own living room or at my house. If I go to an exhibition or see a painting and being in front of that painting and just contemplating it could feel like an extension of a home.
- [04:05]
B
Is that because it's. It's more of a state of mind?
- [04:08]
A
I think so, yes. It's in some sense it's not material, as you say, how your mood is, how you're, how you're feeling.
- [04:18]
B
Yeah. The more I've talked to people on this podcast, the more I feel that the word home is a psychological state rather than a physical structure. And I think that's sort of what we're touching on here. I would love to take you back and just find out a little bit more about your personal experience of home. How do you look back on the home that you grew up in? Where did you grow up and what was it like and what did it teach you?
- [04:45]
A
I was born in Japan and initially started in a very small apartment, outskirts of Tokyo. And then my father built a house with my grandfather. More Central Tokyo. This is 70s Japan. So, you know, they were inspired by modernism and Japan was going through this kind of rapid growth. So we lived in this kind of, yes, very modern, laid out house with big windows, you know, white building for about 10 years, I suppose.
- [05:25]
B
Okay.
- [05:27]
A
And then we moved to a new place, not too far, like another station stop, where my mother's father, an architect, designed a house. And I saw the construction of it. I think I was 10 or 11. I saw the process of my mother and my grandfather discussing layout and et cetera, and that was really inspiring for me. And yeah, we moved there for about two years before suddenly my father decided to come to the UK to work for BBC World Service. And so that was a bit of a shock for me because we didn't have this concept of this world outside of Japan.
- [06:17]
B
How. How did that change your sense of home, would you say?
- [06:22]
A
I feel that Japanese homes are designed for summer conditions, so for extreme hot weather and humidity, so they tend to be more open and transparent. And my grandfather used to talk a lot about Ventilation, you know, that's why these courtyards are important, because they draw air out from your spaces. I feel that in the uk houses are probably more thought for winter conditions. So I really enjoy the kind of coziness, you know, I've always enjoyed, I think, since. Since I was teenager, this kind of feeling of coziness of UK homes. I think both appreciate this sense of darkness or slight dimly lit spaces, but in different ways.
- [07:24]
B
I must admit, I love a courtyard house. There's something as well, isn't there, about this idea of sort of privacy and openness and especially in a city. If I think about some of the houses that I've enjoyed visiting most over the years, it's actually often the ones that are very nondescript from the street. You know, I think of a house I went to once which was accessed by. You had to drive sort of along this little service road, actually, that ran underneath a kind of 70s block of flats. And at the back there were some tumbledown garages which obviously belong to the different flats. You know, the kind of thing with asbestos roofs.
- [08:09]
A
Yes.
- [08:10]
B
And it was remarkable cause one of these garages looked slightly more together than the others. And within it was a door with a doorbell next to it. And you rang that doorbell and this portal admitted you to a pretty amazing house.
- [08:24]
A
Yes.
- [08:26]
B
And I love that sense of theatricality. You know, another I went to where, you know, it's a warehouse door with a smaller door within it. And you open the small door and you have to crouch very low to get through. And it's almost like you're passing through a fallopian tube as you go through the entrance hall and then you get unleashed into this much more dramatic space.
- [08:47]
A
Yes.
- [08:48]
B
Does that resonate with you, the idea of. Of a home that actually presents itself in a very blank way to the street?
- [08:58]
A
Yes, absolutely. I think I find that really interesting. And there was. Well, we did do a house in North London. Well, northwest London, near Queen's Park.
- [09:11]
B
I've been to that house.
- [09:12]
A
Yeah. Where it's. It is, as you say, it's very blank to the street. But inside we created. I mean, we. At the time, we built the whole thing in concrete and. Yeah, we were very, very interested in this idea of really reaching for something extremely personal and extremely hidden in an urban situation.
- [09:38]
B
Just for someone that wouldn't understand that, why is that a good thing?
- [09:42]
A
I'm not saying it's a good thing. It's an interesting thing. I suppose there's a lot to do with light as well. Like this kind of sense of something quite sort of dim and you know, you have total control about light and noise and aspect, prospect or views. You know, there we made a. A garden in minus one level which the subsequent owner has made it into this absolutely gorgeous kind of inward looking oasis really. And yeah, they've made it into this extremely personal space.
- [10:22]
B
I love that.
- [10:23]
A
And there's this idea of sort of
- [10:25]
B
turning your back on the public realm and looking inward and as you say, it's about darkness, introspection, but also the fact that you can connect with nature as well while doing that, I think is really persuasive actually.
- [10:41]
A
Yes, it's like a tiny tea house, you know, Japanese tea house. It's tiny but it's inward looking and there is a hole, big world inside that small space when you look deeper and deeper inwards. And that was what we were interested in.
- [11:01]
B
Yeah, there's something in here about status as well, I think, isn't there? Because we're sort of. We're kind of conditioned to believe that something that's quite overt, open, big, transparent somehow projects a sense of status.
- [11:21]
A
Do you think?
- [11:21]
B
Is that fair, do you think?
- [11:23]
A
Yes, I think it's very much part of our world and we live in, I suppose very, you know, we live in a capitalist world. But I really enjoy, you know, someone saying that a home is. Is to do with your necessity. I've not been very good personally with sort of home. Home as an idea of an investment. It's sort of home stemming from the idea of your own needs and you know, what do you need. And I think that's true for both myself, but also for our clients. You know, we really enjoy listening to each client's brief about what they need and what they would like, what they love. When it's something that is kind of speculative, it gets harder to think about that home environment or design that home environment. So yes, when it becomes about something that is for external interest it starts to get harder to define the sort of, I suppose, brief and. But also this idea of homing if you see. Yeah. The act of. Act of making something a home becomes much harder unless as you say, it's a kind of like a generic bunker that is transferable to other owners or. I don't know, it's a complex topic. But I find that if you just chase status or even property as an investment, it's. It becomes much harder to define the. This environment as a home maybe.
- [13:09]
B
Really interesting. Yeah, we're in the studio today. Not in your home, but your home. I Think you've described to me it's quite a modest place. It seems to me you don't have much in the way of personal possessions, is that fair to say?
- [13:23]
A
I try not to.
- [13:26]
B
We all try,
- [13:28]
A
I think, yes. I mean we realized, I mean we were living in a very small apartment in North London when our son was born and then we moved to South London and it's I suppose a very typical Victorian three bedroom house which I've done very little to over the years and I think my wife or my family would probably wish that we would do a bit more. We did a bathroom about 10 years ago. It took us a long time, you know, it took me a long time to draw it and you know, get the right builder and do, do it, do the renovation but. And we have planning permission for extension, but we haven't really executed it. You know, I just don't seem to have the time or energy when I, when I get to my own house to think about the whole process, you know, planning application, but also getting the builders, getting the costs right and all of those things that I do daily.
- [14:34]
B
That's so interesting to do that at
- [14:36]
A
home again is, is, is. And for myself who, you know, who I suppose, you know, it's sort of. I could then become. End up being the sort of the harshest critic. So sort of, yeah, it puts me
- [14:48]
B
in mind a little bit of. I did a podcast with, with Sky Ginger, the much missed Sky Ginger. I asked her what she would make herself for dinner and she says, well, I just get a tomato, maybe a piece of bread. I cut it up, you know, some nice olive oil, that's what I eat. And I, I think this sort of the same thing. I find it fascinating that as an architect who spends your entire day thinking about that, that when it comes to your own environment you're short of time. But also it sounds like comparatively happy to leave it be.
- [15:22]
A
Yes, it also has a lot of. I mean if I'm being more serious about it, I think there's a lot more in parallel with what I do in work or what we talk about in work, which is to do less or. We did one year at my university teaching under the topic of enough already and that we all have enough of things already, we all have enough materials. It's just about the distribution of it, you know, how do we distribute things in the world. That's kind of more of a topic of conversation. We discussed that materially that there's abundance of things already and plenty of things and spaces and it's about how you distribute that and how you kind of take care of that. The idea, repair, maintenance, longevity. And sometimes I imagine my own very ordinary Victorian house in the same way as this house in North London that you said you visited. This kind of concrete new house. It's not too dissimilar in terms of light, light quality that comes through these kind of Victorian windows, the darkness that it kind of creates on this kind of wooden flooring. They're sort of flexible box. I think Georgian houses, townhouses and Victorian houses are perfect. You know, they're amazing proportion and, you know, many, many generations have kind of worked into them, extended them, adopted them. So they. They have that kind of already have that perfect build quality. Sure, we probably should insulate them a bit more. But they're perfect in terms of a living condition. And in some sense that's what we hope to achieve in our new build projects as well, replicating those kind of historical buildings. So. So yeah, my house, I think I reflect quite a lot of those things, a lot of what I do in work, in what we already have admirably. My wife is spending a lot of time in the garden trying to make, you know, something out of this kind of small patch that we have. And it's quite stunning. You know, it's quite stunning what she's done in the last five, six more, maybe 10 years as a platform. I think it's. The scope is quite infinite. And I also enjoy the intimacy of my study at home where I work, especially since COVID we kind of still work in a hybrid way. And I kind of find it extremely calming and inspiring, actually working from my small study, which is kind of a guest bedroom, but I bought a drawing board during COVID and that's become, you know, really exciting to work by hand at home. And then I go into work to have a kind of a. More of a group discussion on. On what I've been drawing, but also what everybody else has been drawing. And we meet up to talk about that in the office.
- [18:59]
B
There's something in us called the seeking system. And the seeking system drives us to always try and get the next thing, find the next thing, acquire the next thing, climb the property ladder, you know, find the perfect vase for our table, and so on and so on and so on. And that's a strong instinct, and it's not a bad instinct. It's obviously there for a reason, because we're hunter gatherers, right? We need to try and find stuff in order to thrive, thrive as a society, yes. But there's Also a point where it becomes destructive somehow. So yeah, how do we work out what's enough, do you think?
- [19:38]
A
So one of the things I find that was quite sort of striking was when my father passed away two years ago. You discuss things like, you know, inheritance or who does this house belong to or this kind of conversation. And it really hit me that actually we don't own anything. You know, in the end we, we actually don't own anything. We're just kind of temporarily using them or borrowing them or we're kind of inhabiting them. Perhaps same for clothes. You know, I've inherited a lot of second hand clothes from my grandfather or a watch that they've, they bought in the 60s and the 70s, but I've never actually bought a watch. I have lots of beautifully made cashmere jumpers from my grandfather's generation which if you, you can't buy them today really, I mean they cost you a fortune to buy them. But it's maybe similar with your house or home in that period that you own something is actually quite limited as well because of lots of life events and you know, like even noticing my son growing up so fast, we often get asked to design for a family or you design like you know, three bedrooms for, for them or. And then they become empty quite quickly. I had this very interesting conversation with this Zurich based young practice where they kind of did something quite provocative where they actually got rid of all the bedrooms kind of and made this kind of like a curtain screened kind of, you know, space, series of spaces which is not too dissimilar to traditional Japanese houses which are screened off by, you know, rice paper screens, you know, so your bedroom becomes your dining room, becomes your living room if you just fold your futon and put it away. So there's that flexibility in traditional Japanese homes and yeah, so lots of life events have kind of made me think quite a lot about what is enough or what is necessary and this kind of whole temporarity of ownership, you know, because you quickly have to think about, oh, how do you pass something on to your next generation? Yeah, how do you temporarily enjoy things? I suppose. And you don't probably perhaps then need to own so much. It's about like maybe a flow, a gentle flow of materials and properties.
- [22:30]
B
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, really beautiful. I love the idea that you have your grandfather's cashmere jumpers. That's just magical.
- [22:39]
A
I mean, you know, you can't buy, you go to Uniqlo, they even cost £100.
- [22:45]
B
It's amazing that something can Withstand time like that not only materially but also aesthetically.
- [22:51]
A
Yeah.
- [22:51]
B
And I think that's such a great argument to extend it to the home and think about what's the home's equivalent of the cashmere jumper. Because then the things that we have, they endure and our children can use them too.
- [23:04]
A
Yes.
- [23:04]
B
You know, I think that's a really. That's a really great exercise to think about that if we do need or want to acquire something, can it be something that we can imagine our grandchildren using? I think is a good exercise.
- [23:18]
A
Yes. Like, I was excited that my son said, oh, I want to live here, you know, for as long as I can. You know, about our house. Our house is not an architect designed house or grand houses that, you know, we go and see or visit or. And I was really happy that, you know, he's. He's now coming on to 20, but like saying how much he likes our
- [23:44]
B
house, which is very touching.
- [23:45]
A
It's a bit shocked. Yeah.
- [23:47]
B
So why do you think that is? How do you think he would describe it? What does he see?
- [23:52]
A
I guess it's. It's comfort, isn't it? I guess, Yeah. A memory. Yeah. When I talked about like that. I'm coming to talk to you. Something my wife talked about was this sort of houses having memories, you know, houses having this sense of the past or some. Some sort of sense of. Yeah. Narrative or memory that.
- [24:19]
B
Yeah.
- [24:20]
A
That new build homes need to catch up on. Yes, exactly.
- [24:25]
B
You know, let's say that you move on from that house at some stage. What do you think of yourself you leave behind in there?
- [24:32]
A
Oh, gosh, good question. But for example, you know, it's interesting. Yeah. Like when I was describing houses I lived in Japan, they're still so vivid that the things that we did there or things that we were thinking about as we were growing up there, or things that I was inspired by or was aspiring to or those kind of things are still there sometimes physically. And recently my sister moved back to live in the house that we grew up in, that my grandfather designed to convert upstairs, first floor into her own apartment, her own environment. And my mother lives downstairs since my father passed away. And my sister, she's not an architect, but took great care in retaining as much as possible from the original house in the 80s. And you know, she invited architects. Oh, I introduced her to architects and structure engineers. And they came and they were like astonished how well made the hidden beams were or, you know, the whole overall structure. You know, in Japan you have to think about earthquakes and things like that as well. So she admirably, kind of set out on this journey to retain. Yeah. Most of the structure, the frame, the flooring even, but also furniture from our grandmother's generation. It's just full of images of us growing up, but now it's a different space. But I see a column with marks and things like that, which.
- [26:28]
B
Well, that's it. That's exactly right. I was thinking about there's this Walter Benjamin quote, which is, to live means to leave traces.
- [26:36]
A
Right.
- [26:37]
B
And I really like that because I think that is it. I think, you know, we might leave a scar on a wall from a party that we had, or however it may be. I feel like we leave these layers somehow in the fabric.
- [26:49]
A
Yes.
- [26:50]
B
But as to what we leave sort of spiritually, that's obviously a lot harder to define. But I'd love to pivot to sort of looking at city living specifically. I mean, on this theme of sort of materials that we've touched on briefly. I personally, I've talked about this on the podcast, but I'm very sensitive to sound.
- [27:13]
A
Okay.
- [27:16]
B
So the way that a space is materially is quite important to me. Do you think about that when you're designing and how do you feel about a sort of atmosphere of a place? We'll talk about light, but an atmosphere of a place in terms of the acoustics, how does that feed into what you do?
- [27:35]
A
Yeah, it's a big part of what we do. For example, Niwa House had triple glazed. So even though it was very open to the gardens, all the windows and doors were triple glazed. And when you're there, you really don't feel in terms of the noise of the cityscape at all, nor in the space. In North London, that house. We also did a intervention at the Barbican Shakespeare Tower. Again, I mean that in that. In that, you know, instance, it's high up. So. Yeah, but again, you've got this kind of surreal sense of you're in the middle of the city but feel completely isolated other than the view. And it's magical, I think.
- [28:32]
B
And beyond, beyond the glazing, how else can we mediate sound, would you say?
- [28:38]
A
So even in urban situations, I think trees help, but also for both thermal and acoustic, I think it's the buildup of walls. And I think, you know, we've worked with Stone ne House for the first time as a thermal mass, but that's also worked very well, you know, for sound as well, not just for temperature. Rice screen, it's very light, you know, but in terms of sound it's insulating qualities are extremely good.
- [29:18]
B
Oh, really? That's surprising.
- [29:21]
A
And it's something that we had in our bedrooms. In Japan, where my grandfather's designed house, all of the children's bedrooms didn't have a window or a wall. We just had these rice paper screens, shoji screens that you open and close. But it's almost like, you know, when it snows outside and you feel this kind of insulated quality of a bit like here, this kind of sound being absorbed.
- [29:53]
B
It's a deadness, isn't it?
- [29:54]
A
Yes. It feels like that rice paper screen.
- [29:58]
B
Oh, nice. And I guess tatami matting as well
- [30:01]
A
has the same amount of matting. Yeah. It absorbs sound. Yes.
- [30:05]
B
Yeah. Thresholds, Ta kiro doors, corridors, you know, things like that. How can we help people understand thresholds in architecture and why they are an important thing to think about?
- [30:19]
A
Yeah, it's very interesting. I think it's maybe related to this notion of just a, you know, gesture in terms of, you know, we talked earlier about privacy and boundary doesn't need to be. Privacy doesn't necessarily need to be. I don't think, like heavy walls, you know, to block sound completely or visual connection completely. You know, something I. I learned from traditional Japanese architecture in terms of threshold or like, you know, open structures with threshold is that even those spaces themselves might be connected or open by indicating something on the floor or something around the kind of architrave or something around the frame. Frame of an opening creates this gesture of a threshold.
- [31:15]
B
That's interesting. What's an example of that, then?
- [31:19]
A
So as I said, it would be like a door, like a frame.
- [31:23]
B
I see. So rather than the door itself, you just have the frame.
- [31:26]
A
Exactly, yeah. And in, I guess, like a katsura villa or traditional Japanese architecture, there would be like a dark wood surrounding, you know, framing a view as well as a. And often they would have, as I say, like a shoji paper, a screen within it, but left open or, you know, and in the case of, like, Niwa House, it's interesting to think that it's situated behind a series of terrace houses. And you have to go through this kind of alleyway. And so there's a sort of initial gate at the street level. Then you go in and you go through this kind of communal alleyway pathway, and then you come to your front door, which is probably the most significant threshold because you're going from a cityscape to an internal home. And then the house is completely open. Otherwise, once you enter, the layout of the house is completely Open, but marked by series of these white painted frames. And they kind of create this kind of a ritual or gesture of boundaries, depending on how deep into a private space you go into, or. And I guess. Yes, I guess when you come to a bedroom, there is a door.
- [32:58]
B
Yeah, that's. That's really interesting, the way you described that. Yeah. I briefly lived in a house belonging to some friends years ago, and it's actually, they built it behind a Georgian high street, so there's a series of shop fronts, and this has its own sort of warehouse door. And you don't really know it's a house from the front, but you get admitted into an initial courtyard, and then there's another gate which you go through, and then from there there's another holding space and another small warehouse door. And then you get to the front garden area, and then finally you get to quite a narrow front door to the house, which then opens out almost like the beam of a torch when you go inside. So I liken it almost to being in a canal boat, where you get admitted through a series of locks as you go.
- [33:51]
A
Yes.
- [33:51]
B
And I love that there's something. There was something so dramatic about entering that house. You had no clue what you were going to get.
- [33:57]
A
Yes.
- [33:58]
B
But it was playing with drama and a sense of arrival as you went. And that's sort of what you're describing with your house as well. It's a series of thresholds that just make you pause and set expectations as you go.
- [34:11]
A
Yes. And as I listened to you describe that, I'm thinking. So it's physical kind of frame or architrave or a door threshold, but also lighting quality changes as you move through these different spaces. I think that's. That's very interesting, you know, and exciting when you go in. And maybe the first space you enter has a table lamp or something, and then the next space has got a ceiling light or. Yeah, those kind of things are really interesting to create that journey.
- [34:49]
B
Yeah, exactly. Right. Well, let's move on to light. But before. Before we do, I just wanted to also mention a house I've been to, built by the architect Adam Richards in Sussex. And it's fantastic. But one of the really great things about it is you walk into the entrance hall, and the entrance hall is the smallest space in the house, but it's also one of the tallest spaces. So immediately the acoustics are quite strange, you know, and also the only thing in there is a pile of logs. So you smell that. So you're immediately aware that your senses are being Played with, you know that you're in the countryside because you kind of smell that wood and then you open the door into the main kitchen living space, and it's vast, like a great hall.
- [35:35]
A
Yes.
- [35:36]
B
And of course, then you know that that sense of contrast is really what makes it exciting. And as you say that the light ch changes, the scale changes. But I suppose applying that specifically to light, because you brought it up, how would you go about approaching light? Not from a technical standpoint, because I think that's a bit dull, but from an emotional standpoint, especially with your Japanese heritage. I mean, it seems to me Japanese architecture handles light better than any other. How do you look at light emotionally?
- [36:11]
A
Wow. Another. Another. Very interesting.
- [36:13]
B
Another podcast.
- [36:14]
A
Another podcast. Well, light, yes. I mean, it's. It's always been really, really exciting for me to think about light. But architecture, I think ultimately is about light. And that's very, very exciting because it's something you can't quite touch or grab or like, you know, so it's very ephemeral. And I suppose, yes. I mean, as well as enjoying the construction site of my grandfather's timber frame house, where I was really sensing this kind of really interesting kind of flow of light, natural light coming through this construction site, my first encounter with this sense was Tadao Ando's early work with houses. And his work, I mean, at the time only used concrete as the structure. So it was really about sculpting and guiding light. And then from there, you know, I learned about other traditional Japanese architecture things like Katsura Palace. And then you come across a very sort of popular and famous book, In Praise of Shadows by Tanizaki. And there you really learn about this kind of appreciation of not just Japanese architecture, but Japanese art in general, and how makeup in nor theater or kabuki theater or all of these things, and how artifacts were made in consideration to the space and light connections. And I think Tanizaki describes this kind of journey of the garden outside Engawa space, which is this in between space with the roof hanging over this Engawa corridor around the perimeter of a Japanese house. And then you go into this kind of initial space and then the deeper space and so on. And then you discover a person sitting there and this kind of relationship. But also you talk about Adam Richards house, which is highly inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker. And I think, you know, Tarkovsky's films describe a very similar sensibility and emotion with light. This darkness to dimly lit space to lightness. The whole film is really about light sculpting with light, as he describes in his book. So, yes, I think, yes, Japanese culture, but also, you know, internationally, this kind of emotional engagement with light in spaces is something that is really, really fascinating. And. Yeah, one of the most exciting things about architecture and home.
- [39:13]
B
Yeah. I mean, you mentioned the essay in Praise of Shadows there. That is really the touch point for all this stuff, isn't it? And, you know, lots of people talk about it, but if anyone watching or listening hasn't read it, I really do recommend it.
- [39:26]
A
Yeah.
- [39:27]
B
You know, as you say, it's so embedded in Japanese culture. I mean, I love the way he talks about even a bowl of miso soup.
- [39:33]
A
Yeah.
- [39:33]
B
It's sort of dark and mysterious with. With the white tofu floating in it. It's always the contrast between light and dark. And, you know, the way that in Japan they place ceramic in a. In a recess in a very dark corner of the house.
- [39:50]
A
Yes.
- [39:51]
B
So. And somehow that darkness just sort of emphasizes its jewel, like, quality.
- [39:57]
A
Yeah. And so I based my kind of. How do you say, final dissertation when I was a student on Embrace of Shadows, but particularly on the last chapter in the book about toilets, Japanese toilets. So I wrote about this kind of his view on toilets and surfaces, finishes. So at the time, I think Tanizaki was really. He wrote those essays to oppose this kind of pressure of Americanization and modernization in Japan, you know, this kind of thing of replacing all timber surfaces and materials with stainless steel and white tiles, white, polished tiles. And in the book, he complains about the fact that you have to keep polishing these materials, these imported materials, you know, to keep this sense of clean, cleanliness and tidiness and shine, you know, and he kind of poetically and emotionally talks about, you know, how the sort of traditional Japanese toilet space or houses made with wood and materials that basically age. So he describes a lot about the idea of. I suppose these days people use the term wabi sabi, but this kind of idea of elements naturally decaying and appreciating those things and appreciating the rustic qualities. And that could only happen when you haven't got, like, this kind of beaming light, you know, onto these materials and you kind of enjoy. You know what you were saying earlier about, like, a mark on a column or. Yeah. They become part of the aesthetic of your environment.
- [41:55]
B
Well, on that, then. I mean, we've talked a bit about natural light, and we talked about mediating it with screens and things like that. But in terms of artificial light, how do you tend to approach that? Because it's really tricky one, isn't it? It's clear we don't want to over light spaces. We've talked about that. But what. Are there any particular rules or ideas that you have?
- [42:16]
A
More and more we work with 5amp circuits or like, you know, plug in. Plug in light lighting.
- [42:25]
B
Yeah. The idea that you can. You can enter a room and you. You turn the light switch on and you're not dazzled by overhead lighting, but it's a soft.
- [42:36]
A
Exactly. Yeah.
- [42:38]
B
And so you're lighting corners and areas, right?
- [42:40]
A
Yes. And we notice also that more and more of our clients don't really like recessed downlighters either. You know, where they become very present in the ceiling design. Instead, you know, there's a lot more discussion about, look, not really having any fittings in the ceiling.
- [43:04]
B
Yeah.
- [43:06]
A
Or when we do, they. They are a proper artifact, some sort of a feature that you really kind of engage with this. The. The space in ways that they're trying to hide but not actually hiding kind of. Yeah. Lights. But at the same time. Yeah. How do you make sure that your cookbooks are lit and, you know, as we all age as well, like, how do you deal with sense of seeing? So it's balance. But. Yeah.
- [43:36]
B
You mentioned wabi sabi. This word imperfection, it's so important in Japanese culture. How do you describe that in the context of the home? Why is imperfection something that you're drawn to?
- [43:53]
A
I think imperfection is comforting in the end. You know, it feels to me that it's okay that things decay and things. But also in your own way of living, it's okay that, yeah, things need repair, maintenance, upkeep. Also, you know, as children in Japan, we actually learn to clean in schools. So we. It's our. It's our. How do you say, it's part of the learning, part of the curriculum. Part of the curriculum, too. So at the end of each school day, you push all your desks and chairs at the back of the room, and we all clean the floor and, you know, mop the floor and sweep and polish the windows and so on. And in a way, I think about that more and more because now, because it's deeply embedded into Japanese culture, this idea that you look after not just your home, but cities. You see lots of people cleaning in cities in Japan, really diligently. It's like religion in Japan, that it's like that God is in all of this kind of spaces that. Like in a public loo or department store even. I find that a really interesting culture. But at the same time. This kind of idea of imperfection exists in Japan as well, so. So it's not imperfection. Doesn't mean that you just sort of like, you know, live like students and just kind of throw things on the floor and da, da, da. Yeah, you take care of things, but you let also things decay. And it's okay that they. With all due respect to students. Sorry, I didn't mean it in a disrespectful way, but it's just this about, like, how do you really take care of things minimally, as in sort of live minimally and take care of things and look after things, mend things, but that it's also at the same time that things have their own life and lifespan and things age and texture and character would be added to these kind of surfaces and materials.
- [46:26]
B
What I like about that, I think, is that if you take that approach, it actually makes you less anxious because I think when we spend a lot of time trying to keep things pristine, let's say a floor that's really stressful, you know, a floor, as we know, that shows up every single crumb.
- [46:44]
A
Yeah.
- [46:45]
B
Is really hard to live with.
- [46:46]
A
Yeah.
- [46:47]
B
Whereas a floor that stood there resolutely through the centuries and has absorbed all the footfall that's gone across it.
- [46:53]
A
Yeah.
- [46:54]
B
Well, that's great. You don't worry about it anymore.
- [46:55]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [46:57]
B
So I think it's a really good lens for choosing what you're going to live with materially.
- [47:01]
A
Yes.
- [47:02]
B
Is thinking, well, is this going to cause me anxiety? Am I going to have to keep polishing it?
- [47:06]
A
Yeah. You know, and some modern materials don't let that happen at all, which is good in many ways because they stay clean.
- [47:15]
B
Yeah.
- [47:16]
A
But they don't. There's nothing gets added to that layer, you know, in terms of memory and. Yeah. It's.
- [47:25]
B
Well, that's a good point as well. There's the addition of.
- [47:28]
A
Yeah.
- [47:28]
B
Of layers on the top. Yeah. The last thing I want to talk to you about is, well, being or the idea of a home supporting you not just physically, but emotionally, supporting the psyche in some way, in your view and your experience, Can a flat or a house somehow contribute to the way that you feel, your happiness ultimately? Can it make you happier, would you say?
- [47:59]
A
Absolutely, yes. I've lived in so many different spaces, sometimes in a dormitory, you know, which is not mine at all, obviously, and you live there for a year or something, but you spend your time with this act of homing, you know, making it into a home, your. Your home environment and what is that? You know, and I think it's. It's a sort of surrounding yourself with subjective, personal things, you know, as much as possible. But B, it's also having some link to something quite objective as well. I think ultimately I think about that quite a lot as an architect now because, you know, I'm designing other people's houses and homes. So naturally you think about something that's deeply personal for our clients. You know, we imagine kind of being them in a way, living there, listening to their brief, reading their brief, understanding their brief, but at the same time try to link that to something slightly bigger as well, like something objective, like, I don't know, like Tanizaki or a wider history. So we always work with references as well. So that's something quite objective, something not necessarily just personal. So historical references or contemporary or other architecture or even art or film. So those things exist, I think, to stay healthy, if you like. So it's not just about your inner world. It's also some sort of connection to outside world, whether it's nature or history or. I think those things play part. And I think as architects we look at those things in the language of architecture, so a column or lighting or skirting or, you know, how we express those things. Personally, I look at those things in, as you say, like a bigger memory. So people have photographs or, you know, so historical or past memories or something outside of just yourself. But I absolutely feel that, you know, as I said earlier, that, you know, I question what do we actually own anyway? And from this idea of what's necessary and what's enough, I think one is totally capable of making a home environment in a. In hopefully in any situation or in any kind of space. But, you know, even whether it's a rented house or a owned property, I think you could achieve quite a lot in terms of your well being, you know, speaking to your well being.
- [50:51]
B
If I could just finally ask you just to give something for people to take away with them, you know, what. What would you say are, you know, is the most important thing we've talked about today or two or three things we talked about today that, you know, in terms of a sort of parting message based on your experience, on the things that you've thought about through your work, you know, your own home, what would you say you'd like to leave them with?
- [51:20]
A
I suppose necessity, as, you know, this kind of sense of enough already. Or this sense of, yeah, what do you need for a home environment? And I don't mean that in a technical way, but as you say, emotional way, mainly. And I think things like memory kind of come to play quite a lot in that conversation of necessity. So it's kind of a. Yeah, something. Something maybe even maybe poetic in. In this idea of what, Enough already. Or necessity. Looking at it more objectively through work, I, you know, I always feel that I'm working with the narrative of something really deeply personal, subjective to each home and their clients and. But at the same time, something really objective. So this sense of longer time or wider society or something of urban or rural quality that is part of a home. So those things are kind of inseparable in a way. Even in a very confined concrete house in Queen's Park, I think there is an element of a dialogue with the wider city because it's kind of reacting with that outside condition. Yeah, this kind of simplicity in the idea of Enough already. I really enjoy this idea of keeping things quite light. Keeping things quite light footed and touching the earth quite gently, you know, touching the ground quite gently. So as a summary, I think it's that really this sort of lightness of touch and thinking that you can't possibly be owning or carrying with you so much stuff in order to do that meaningfully or. Or to do that well at home, you know, because I think ultimately home is somewhere you. You can relax and some. Somewhere you can feel. You can let go and feel calm. And I don't think you need much to feel that, you know.
- [53:43]
B
Wonderful. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Take Hero. Thank you for being here.
- [53:46]
A
Thank you very much.
- [53:47]
B
It was really interesting.
- [53:48]
A
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
- [53:52]
B
Thank you very much to Take Hero and thanks to all of you for listening along. I hope today's episode was helpful or at least enlightening in some way. I must say, I loved meeting Takeru. I haven't met him before, but I've been to a few of his projects, as I said. And. And as well as being a fantastic architect, he seems to me like a highly evolved human being. So a really nice guy. I thought if you enjoyed listening and can spare a second to leave us a review, especially on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you listen there, that will be extremely helpful. The more engagement we get, the more the algorithms recommend the podcast to other people as well. If not, that's okay too. I'm very happy to have you here, of course.
- [54:34]
A
Course.
- [54:35]
B
Thanks again for your support, everyone. And talk to you on the next one. This episode was produced by Pod Shop with music by Simeon Walker. Bye bye.