Engelska

3RW was established in year 2000 as a young and independent office, strongly rooted in Bergen s art and cultural scene. The founding partners of 3RW were all educated (and later, also taught) at the independent Bergen School of Architecture or BAS, a school founded by Svein Hatløy, who oriented the institution towards the philosophy of open form. <br/><br/>Open form seeks to create an inclusive architecture. It conceptualizes architectural language as a democratic expression &ndash; one which allows for meaningful social transformations. Designs are to be based on and interactive with their context, material and immaterial; of the landscape and climate. <br/><br/>3RW architects regularly work on the completion of diverse sociocultural site analyses, also using this site-oriented methodology in other participation processes, both in the fields of planning and architecture. 3RW s starting point for carrying out sociocultural place analyses is supported by the understanding that a place is not reducible to its physical components, but is an ensemble made of local inhabitants experiences, memories, values and feelings. <br/><br/>These analyses help 3RW to identify the many understandings, interests, differences, wishes and needs of an area-bound population. Such analyses critically contribute to the dimension of social sustainability of projects; their purpose is to unearth the relevant aspects of the socially constructed place .

Media coverage of Japanese architecture the past twenty years has largely been dominated by the works of SANAA, Sou Fujimoto, Jun ya Ishigami and their contemporaries. Their skillfully designed, ethereal white spaces and structures, have proved well suited to being exported in an increasingly visual culture. <br/><br/>Communal Ecologies, on the other hand, highlights an emerging generation of young architects pursuing a very different vision. They strive for an architecture that is rougher, more dynamic, and deeply rooted in social and ecological engagement. With a growing interest in community and network building, and a reevaluation of architecture s connection to nature, they are developing critical methodologies for practice, and are reimagining the role of the architect in the process. Faced with a lack of opportunities in traditional housing design due to Japan s economic decline, alongside a heightened awareness of ecological challenges brought on by frequent natural disasters, this generation of architects are crafting innovative strategies to engage with the existing housing stock and address challenges related to sustainability, reuse and transformation. <br/><br/>Communal Ecologies comprises a collection of interviews that introduce prominent figures from this generation, accompanied by documentation by architectural photographer Marc Goodwin as well as essays by emerging Japanese scholars. This book presents a fresh and nuanced understanding of the Japanese architecture scene, while also hinting at the potential in questioning the traditional role of the architect.