M.Arch/MAArC Studio Field Trip to Kyoto

Now that global travel has been gradually resuming, travelling studios have also been returning to our programs here at the DoA. Last week, our M.Arch and MA.ArC students visited Kyoto, Japan for a field trip and site visit. The field trip is part of their joint M.Arch/MA.ArC Options studio titled “Heritage in Motion | Tradition Re-presented) led by Ho Puay Peng, Head of NUS DoA and UNESCO Chair on Architectural Conservation and Management in Asia, and Tan Kay Ngee of Kay Ngee Tan Architects. The studio is performed in collaboration with Professor Yamauchi Takahiro and Miyauchi Tomohisa, Kyoto Arts and Crafts University (KYOBI).

Osaka from Umeda Sky Building, photographed by Foo Jing Xi, M.Arch

During their field trip, apart from physically experiencing and analysing their site, which is a modernist school in Dohda, Nakagyo ward, the studio visited traditional architecture typologies in Kyoto such as the “Machi-ya”, which are the shophouses in Japan, Buddhist Temples such as Byodoin, and the Zen Gardens within them. In addition, they looked at contemporary examples of adaptive reuse architecture which incorporated elements of tradition in design, rather than approaching projects through pure formal conservation.

“I enjoyed being able to observe the finer, banal and more everyday details of the site that contribute to the essence of the site, in comparison to a top-down analysis that we are more accustomed to.” – Kee Cheow Yan, M.Arch II Student

Roofs at Byodo-in, photographed by Yang Yanqing, MAArC

Uji, Kyoto, photographed by Eldon Ng, M.Arch

Studio Photo at Kyoto Arts and Crafts University, photographed by Gong Yifan, MAArC