Kindai Univ.
Architectural Planning Lab.
Places that communities need,
envisioned and shaped together
Focus on
Research and proposals on
sustainable railway stations
We survey and analyze diverse cases from across Japan on how to use unstaffed stations, whose number is growing as the population declines. We aim to redefine the role stations play in their communities and to propose sustainable operating models and widely applicable schemes for their use.
Methods for conserving and
using cultural landscapes
This research re-evaluates “cultural landscapes” shaped by people and nature over long periods of time. We explore planning methods for conserving townscapes and village landscapes while passing them on to the future as places for tourism and daily life.
Research on resident self-governance
in new towns
We study the future of living environments in new towns that have matured half a century after their development. Looking at them not merely as residential areas, we investigate how sustainable “places to belong” where multiple generations live together take shape in the community, and consider what makes a rich community.
PROJECTS
PROFILE
Founder
Ryotaro URAI
BIO
＋Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Kindai University
＋Visiting Researcher, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), The University of Tokyo
Born in Wakayama Prefecture. After graduating from the Planning and Management major in the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Kindai University, he completed a master’s degree in the Urban Design course of the Department of Urban Design, Planning and Disaster Management, Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, and a doctoral program in the Department of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, before taking up his current position. He specializes in architectural planning and community design. Ph.D. (Engineering). Second-class Kenchikushi (licensed architect).
Philosophy
Creation through continuation
Kintsugi, the art of repairing broken vessels with lacquer and finishing them with gold, does not hide the cracks but embraces them as a new landscape of the vessel. My approach to architecture and towns is likewise rooted in this idea of “continuing.” History, landscapes, materials, everyday activities and people’s memories: rather than destroying what is already there, I read it carefully, reweave it and pass it on to the next era. I believe cities and architecture are not made from scratch but carried forward in continuity with the past.
Field
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