Dive-deep into Japanese Cultures: Exhibition on Architecture Students’ Design & Responses on Public Bath and Disaster Preparedness

Join us at the Japan Creative Centre (JCC) for an exhibition and presentation hosted by NUS Architecture students. Discover what they’ve learned and experienced about Japanese culture during their summer break in 2024, in collaboration with several Japanese university students.

One of the exhibits focuses on Public Bath Culture (銭湯文化) and explores how its significance in society can be reimagined through the redesign of bathhouses in Tokyo. Another exhibit examines Japan’s Disaster Preparedness Culture (防災文化) along the Tohoku coastline. This excursion-based workshop enabled students to understand the reconstruction outcomes and challenges from the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11th March 2011.

Opening Hours: 10:00 – 18:00
Presentation Sessions:
13:00-14:00 – Presentation Session 1
15:30-16:30 – Presentation Session 2

The event is free and open to the public. For attending the presentation sessions, please register in advance via this link.

Panel sessions are designed for visitors to freely walk around the exhibition. Students will be available for Q&A. During the presentation sessions, students from both Singapore and Japan will share their projects and experiences, followed by a short discussion.

The presentation sessions will also be available online (registration is not required). Please join via this Zoom link, Webinar ID: 856 0635 7285.

Public Bath Culture (銭湯文化) Workshop: Intensive Architecture Workshop in Tokyo, 2024 (IWIT 2024)
Period: 20 to 30 June 2024
Venue: Toyosu campus at the Shibaura Institute of Technology and Noda campus at the Tokyo University of Science

IWIT2024 focuses on public bathhouses, known as Sentō in Japan. Participants in the workshop formed groups with students from the Tokyo University of Science and the Shibaura Institute of Technology and collaborated intensively for a week. Throughout this period, they conducted research on specific sites, engaged in discussions, and exchanged opinions informed by their diverse cultural and academic backgrounds. By the end of the workshop, students independently identified and defined local issues and collectively developed proposals to address them. The final presentation, delivered in both English and Japanese, was open to the public and served as one of the key deliverables.

Disaster Preparedness Culture (防災文化) Workshop: Learning from the Great East Japan Earthquake Reconstruction Process
Period: 22 to 29 July 2024
Venue: Tohoku University, and excursions across Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures

This excursion- and discussion-based workshop aimed to provide real-life learning experiences for all participants (8 from NUS, 4 from Tohoku University) to understand the Japanese culture of “living with disaster” by travelling along the Tohoku coastline. Spanning across the Iwate to Fukushima prefectures, we visited a number of March 11th reconstruction projects and memorials, which helped us understand how social, economic, political, and ecological forces influence the decisions of machi-zukuri and infrastructural planning.

Has Tohoku recovered successfully? By what criteria, and from whose point of view?

The activities during the trip were designed to be as interactive as possible to promote mutual learning, and there were many opportunities to listen to the voices of residents, local leaders, and participants from various backgrounds.

These workshops were supported by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce & Industry Singapore Foundation (JCCI).