My goal for the future is to develop my existing skills and to improve immature talents. I know that only a new experience, an outstanding one is able to push me to the limits in terms of achievement and commitment. –Grace Aaraj, UO current graduate student in architecture, Fulbright scholar; M. Arch candidate 2014, University of Oregon, Portland; B. Arch 2011, Institut des Beaux Arts II, Beirut
In 2011, when Grace Aaraj, a 21 year old student from Beirut, Lebanon, wrote those words as part of her autobiographical essay included in both her Fulbright scholarship application and her application for graduate studies with the Department of Architecture at the UO, she had little idea just how many new and richly diverse experiences would unfold for her in the United States. Like many international exchange students, she came to the United States with an empathic idealism enthusiastic to meet new friends, and connect across cultural lines challenging any divides and stereotypes by sharing stories, tastes, conversation and advocating cooperation and collaboration. Her gregarious nature and generous spirit were met with varying degrees of acceptance—here was a young female of Middle Eastern in descent in an environment traditionally dominated by masculine presence and Western expectations. Not daunted by possible perceptions of her background and culture, Aaraj’s experience at the University of Oregon has illuminated and enhanced an outlook where she was able to expand her frame of reference and gain invaluable academic and professional-related experience. As she is quick to point out, coming to the United States to study and immerse herself in graduate studies, she had divergent paths to chose from: adopt and adapt to the new and unusual or withdraw into a secluded course of study and academia. One path would give her experience in-the-field of architecture and design and invaluable networking opportunities; the other, a quiet yet dedicated focus on study and research. In the nurturing and experience-driven environment of the University, she says, she was encouraged her to explore possibility in both the classroom and the community—the paths of solitary academic study brilliantly enhanced by internships with architectural firms and presentations to professional conferences. Into this atmosphere of connection and opportunity, Aaraj has been able to blend a background rooted in Middle Eastern tradition and embrace the professional opportunity she has been afforded while a student at the UO. As she so proudly asserts, her parents raised her to respect all people, not only those just like her, and to appreciate and create opportunity. And, Aaraj points out, it has been her egalitarian outlook that has blossomed at the University of Oregon.
Her enthusiasm and desire to seek connections with people while in Portland at the UO White Stag location led her to opportunities where she could explore her cultural background, gain a sense of learning from the experiences of others, and network with established professionals in her field of academic study. To meet and talk with this young woman is to connect with a truly vibrant and enthusiastic individual eager to interact with opportunity, her community, and to find possibility in a great variety of pursuits. Perhaps her openness to listen, to learn from and to recognize the potential in cross-cultural interaction has led to a pattern of academic learning blended with an interest in humanitarian objectives. The influence most felt and positively effected her time here has been the academic environment she has immersed herself in with studio courses offered within Portland UO’s urban architecture focus –studios ranging from Professor Hajo Neis’ regenerative architecture to Philip Speranza’s Bridging project. The projects she became engaged in echoed her desire for “human interactions and pride….and [celebrated] common humanities and respected commonalities.”
Grace Aaraj, with the Bridging Project. Photo by Tim Niou
Having received her undergraduate degree in architecture from Institut des Beaux-Arts, Beirut, Aaraj was a volunteer for two years for a campaign to enhance urban public spaces in Beirut with the focus on the health and well-being of children. Based on her accomplishments in Beirut, she subsequently received the Fulbright fellowship in architecture, funded by the United States Department of State. Coming to the United States for studies at the UO Department of Architecture—she comments that in addition to the globally-immersed and urban architecture-focused faculty of the UO in Portland Department of Architecture, she selected the UO for her graduate studies because of the “sustainability focus and the community oriented projects.”
Since being a UO student, her work has been represented as part of the University of Oregon Department of Architecture at the Construction Specifications Institute Forum 2013. She has obtained the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO) scholarship and participated in an international urban design workshop; as well as presented at the Architecture for Humanity national conference in San Francisco. Working with fellow students, Annie Ledbury, Jackie Davis, and Beth Lavelle, Aaraj and her team won a student-organized charrette to design a clinic in Haiti, (REvive Jacmel), and then developed construction drawings with Waterleaf Architecture, along with other student partners. In December, 2013 she was part of a design-build project in Haiti, with Sergio Palleroni and students from the Center for Public Interest Design at Portland State University. She is currently working on a model of housing and work opportunities for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, with the focus of repurposing the campus to an ecotourism hub, after the end of the crisis. Her active involvement in the field and her intent to stay focused on humanitarian objectives mirrors her opinion that her “world is a world where global change starts from a local action.” As the repertoire of experience in the field for Aaraj expanded these past two years, so seemed to be a consistent interest in empathic design and architecture built with a humanitarian focus in mind.
With Grace Aaraj, Winter 2014
Due to her work in humanitarian design and her interest in language viewed not as a barrier but as an opportunity, in the winter of 2014, Aaraj was approached by the Portland Public School system and asked to be a guest presenter at the International Youth Leadership Conference.
[IYLC provides highly engaging, culturally competent workshops appropriate for Emergent Bilinguals (students of English as a Second Language) and addresses leadership and communication, college and career choices, and culture and community issues promoting intercultural communication, community activism, teamwork and self-esteem. The conference, organized by the English as a Second Language Department of Portland Public Schools, is an opportunity for EB’s to learn and network with fellow students, educators and language minority leaders in the Portland area.]
The UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts had partnered with IYLC program by hosting the IYLC students’ Mercy Corps-led workshops at the UO White Stag location during the winter months.
High School Students With Grace Aaraj's workshop--discovering geographic location
Aaraj comments
“The event [was] tailored to empower high school students who have English as their second language. I was excited and knew immediately this [was] an educational aspect I want[ed] to be part of. [When asked to be a part of the conference], I remember thinking ‘I hope I still qualify to be part of the English as Second Language workshops.’ You see, English is my third language.”
Grace Aaraj with high school students
Aaraj is fluent in Arabic as well as French. She is currently learning Spanish. Aaraj was pleased to be offered to interact with high school and middle school age students and quickly formulated an idea to work with them focusing on the topic of language.
Aaraj’s IYLC workshops, titled “Languages and Traditions: Bringing Us Closer Together” involved inviting the high school students to approach a large map of the world mounted on the classroom wall—students placed a colored pin on the country of their birth and then had an opportunity to discuss and share stories from their homeland about cultural traditions, language challenges they faced upon coming to the United States and ways of communicating in their new environment.
High School Students With Grace Aaraj's workshop--discovering geographic location and proximity
Aaraj comments that she “wanted everyone to understand that geographical boundaries should not limit what [they] know or what [they] understand.”
More importantly, Aaraj’s participation in the conference was, as she describes,
“an enriching experience, as I get to discover a topic I am interested in outside my comfort zone. As a student in architecture, I am not trained to teach. Being at the workshop with high school students from different backgrounds and having different languages spoken was beautiful.”
She continues,
“The workshop was like a big living room, a discussion among friends. It started with exchanging names in native languages, writing them and ended with stories and personal participation from everyone.
A lot of good moments followed by laughing were the highlight of the workshop. I never believed you can teach diversity from a book; it just takes few minutes and talking among strangers. It is also important to visualize information, like calligraphy in a certain language or location of different countries on a map. This is how lessons are learnt. The look on these students’ faces when I wrote my name in Arabic from right to left, their surprise, were precious. I myself, like everyone else, learned a lot about them.”
Grace Aaraj is continuing her exploration of language, limits and communication with her submission of an essay for the Many Languages One World United Nations competition where she will present her research and personal reflections on the requirements for the One World essay, “the ideas of global citizenship and understanding and the role that multilingual ability can play in fostering these.”
Aaraj’s openness and acceptance of all those around her, her willingness to listen to and empathize with the personal stories of the people she encounters speaks volumes to what she asks for from all, “tell me your own history, share your personal story and ask for mine. I keep asking, I keep listening: you can do the same….for that brief fulfilling moment, we are ‘citizens of the world’.”
If Grace Aaraj continues with her generosity of character and her willingness to try and “understand the world as a way to understand a region’s history and its people’s traditions,” she will certainly surround herself with her goal of establishing (as she describes it) a “a big living room of discussion among friends.” Aaraj’s story is only one of many of the diverse student body at the UO in Portland Department of Architecture urban architecture studies program. But, like the rest of her cohorts, she reflects a key aspect of the program: that of bottom up design, creating for people, and perhaps, most of all, a testimony to the influence of Portland director of the architecture program and professor, Hajo Neis and his research regarding the Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth , recently presented publicly in his collaborative book of the same title.
It is Professor Neis’ contention, along with collaborator and co-author Christopher Alexander, that:
“The purpose of all architecture… is to encourage and support life-giving activity, dreams, and playfulness. But in recent decades, while our buildings are technically better–more sturdy, more waterproof, more energy efficient– they have also became progressively more sterile, rarely providing the kind of environment in which people are emotionally nourished, genuinely happy, and deeply contented.”
Resourceful, observant, up-and-coming students in the UO architecture program, like Aaraj seem to be part of this philosophy encouraged and fostered by the expertise and guidance of professors like Neis:
Namely the creation of environments that “genuinely support the emotional, whole-making side of human life” and architects and designers who have the capability “to build places of human energy and beauty.”
With, as Neis points out, wholeness and in humane ways.
The future of architecture and the built environment in the hands of these sensitive and mindful individuals would appear to offer empathy, understanding and unprecedented levels of responsibility to all people. And, as Aaraj vividly states, “it is not related to redrawing boundaries, forcing languages into places, nor erasing history or fitting into one category.” The important part, she says, is the willingness to “communicate, understand and assimilate.”
While the world might be a vast and complicated place tangled in technology and bursting forth with unbridled innovation, those who have the courage to see it as a tightknit collaboration of real people (as opposed to merely pixels) open to cooperation and kind regard, both in relating to one another and in creating for the built environment could prove to be the “big living room” approach that might benefit us all.
See more work by Grace Aaraj on her website, Grace Aaraj.
Grace Aaraj (middle) with UO fellow graduate students, Jackie Davis (left) and Annie Ledbury (right) share a picnic on the Bridging Project in the North Park Blocks. All are in the M. Arch Portland Department of Architecture UO.
(Note: Socrates said, “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world. There is no difference between learning and living.”)
Afterthesuccessfulcompletionof the first two International PUARL Conferences at the University of Oregon in Portland in the Fall of 2009 and 2011, the Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory, PUARL, announced the 2013 biennial conference titled “Battle for the Life and Beauty of The Earth.” The 2013 Conference focused on problems and issues that populations are facing in urban environments and buildings throughout the world today. The conference took place in Portland, Oregon in the Fall of 2013, November 1-3, in cooperation with the Collaboration for Inclusive Urbanism, CIU.
Taken from the title of the new book by Christopher Alexander, Hans Joachim Neis, and Maggie Moore Alexander, this year’s conference focused on the variety of ways in which urban environments and urban buildings, as well as their design and production, can support life, beauty, and wholeness, in addition to confronting the challenges implicit in attaining these goals. Life as a complex web of relationships, as an emergent process over time, and as a human feeling was discussed in terms of complexity theory, pattern theory, ecology, sustainability, and landscape to address contemporary discourses and debates in environmental design, urban design, and urban architecture.
The three main themes that were emphasized in this conference:
Inclusive Urbanism & the Ecosystems of Cities
Building Production for a More Beautiful & Resilient World
(Re)Generative and Emergent Processes
INCLUSIVE URBANISM & THE ECOSYSTEMS OF CITIES
Understanding of urban environments must begin with the understanding that they are most successful when they represent diverse and resilient ecosystems. The urban challenge of this age must include questions about social equity and urban inclusivity. How can we promote diversity and enfranchise underrepresented groups in the ecology and processes of cities? From the Collaboration for Inclusive Urbanism, www.inclusiveurbanism.org, “The role of the city is to provide the contexts that invite people to realize their social, personal, and economic aspirations. This invitation should be available to all.”
BUILDING PRODUCTION FOR A MORE BEAUTIFUL & RESILIENT WORLD
If cities themselves are the organic product of human need, what is the process by which the production of the physical structures of buildings, neighborhoods, parks, and urban landscapes support and augment urban life? What are the building processes that create neighborhoods, urban landscapes and buildings that are resilient and alive within themselves and that support those all- important intangibles of life and beauty – the life worth living. Papers in this category will address the question of how we produce life- supporting buildings, complexes, neighborhoods and communities for all people, especially the 93% of the world.
(RE)GENERA TIVE AND EMERGENT PROCESSES
Strong ecosystems form a complex and complete web of relationships that emerge and change over time. Generative process explores the world as an emergent process at several levels of scale and with regard to different modes, and regenerative process does the same for recurring cycles of growth and re-growth. These modes include elements of but are not limited to physical, artistic, musical, and sociocultural as well as economic themes. We ask: how can generative and emergent processes as well as (re)generative (urban) design help to solve some of the current urban challenges that we face in our cities, neighborhoods, streets and parks? What are the methods, ideologies, and vocabularies that can support the creation of built environments that are complex, complete, diverse, resilient, and emergent over time?
The 2013 PUARL schedule included presentations by:
Johann Jessen PUARL Lecture: Challenges for Reurbanization in German Cities
A. INCLUSIVE URBANISM & THE ECOSYSTEM OF CITIES
Howard Davis Keynote – Makers in Cities: the Architecture of Urban Production
Michael Garrison Two Primary Schools in Central East Africa Based on Indigenous Sustainable Design
Greg Bryant Referendum on Urban Life: A City Stops Development-As-Usual
Michael Tavel The Culture of Sustainable Urbanism
Robert Walsh The Lovable City: Thomas Mawson’s Civic Art (1911) Applied to Contemporary Urbanism
Regan Greenhill 7@ Public Amenities in Barcelona’s 22@ Information District
B.D.Wortham-Galvin Contingent Urbanism: when tactics are the strategy
Gabriel Brown, Howard Davis, Hajo Neis Old Town/Chinatown Research and Studio
B: BUILDING PRODUCTION FOR A MORE BEAUTIFUL & RESILIENT WORLD
Stephen Duff Keynote – Significant Details: Design & Construction Processes in Four Design-Build Apprenticeship Projects at the University of Oregon
Sergio Palleroni Keynote – Public Interest Design
Aysun Ozkose Ecological Homes for a More Beautiful & Resilient World at the Event Room
Kyriakos Pontikis Eco-Humane Design
Christopher Robin Andrews Architectural Ornament in Haitian Culture
Ayesha Batool The Resilient Existence of External Perforated Solar Screens In Islamic Architectural Environments
Greg Bryant Christopher Alexander’s Dialogue with the Computer Industry
Doug Schuler The Surprising Power, Vitality, and Potentiality of Examining the “Dark Side:” The Collaborative Production of an Anti-Pattern Language in an Educational Setting
Takuma Ono (Re)generative and Emergent Processes
James Miller Resilience Found Through Human Processes in Post-Disaster Haiti
Michael Mehaffy Changing the “Operating System for Growth:” Diversity, Resilience, Beauty
Takashi Iba Making a Movie: A Pattern Language
Yodan Rofe & Kyriakos Pontikis Sketching a Sustainable Form Language for a Neighborhood
Ross Chapin Pocket Neighborhoods and the Scale of Sociability
Peter Baumgartner Patterns in Education and Architecture
About the Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory
The Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory, PUARL, seeks to promote wholeness and sustainability in the urban and architectural design process by conducting basic and applied research in addition to working on practical urban and architectural projects both within the region and internationally. PUARL provides a platform for the exchange of ideas and the discussion of research and professional practice for scholars, academics, and professionals both through their work and the organization of international conferences and symposia. Topics of interest include urban sustainability and wholeness, generative process, pattern languages, living architecture, complexity theory, emergence and unfolding, and the nature of order. PUARL is intent on continuing to advance these fields of investigation and influence the conduct of architecture and urban design worldwide by providing and encouraging an interdisciplinary approach to critical and relevant topics across fields and throughout the world. puarl.uoregon.edu
About the Collaborative for Inclusive Urbanism
The working premise of the Collaborative for Inclusive Urbanism, CIU, is that inclusive cities are both more affluent and more socially just. Inclusive cities are more affluent because they mobilize and enable a wider spectrum of people and talents than a city in which some of those human resources are marginalized. They are more socially just because by including the otherwise marginalized in the productive activities and opportunities of the city, inclusive cities offer better access to pathways for social and economic betterment. Inclusiveness works against gentrification, and its shadow: urban decay. It works against dividing the city into ghettoes. It does not mean freezing growth or preventing redevelopment; rather, the opposite—encouraging more sustainable, prosperous, widespread growth and development by avoiding exclusivity, dislocation and the heavy, often ignored costs they carry. The role of the city is to provide the contexts that invite people to realize their social, personal, and economic aspirations. This invitation should be available to all. In the service of this goal, we carry out research and develop innovative ideas that lead to designs, policy recommendations, and experiments in practice. www.inclusiveurbanism.org
Abandoned cement factory, Fukushima. Photo: A Koger
By Ashley Koger
[Editor’s Note: Ashley Koger graduated from the University of Oregon in Portland Department of Architecture in spring 2013 with a master of architecture. She was eager to explore how she could put her experience to good work and engage herself in projects that might benefit the world. Seeking to expand her experience, she approached UO Portland architecture professor, Hajo Neis and asked him how she could continue to stay involved and active in an academic university setting. Neis suggested she join him and his colleague, Masami Kobayashi of Meiji University in Japan for the student summer exchange workshop sponsored by the Architectural Institute of Japan (you can read about this collaboration, here). Having to spend only about $200 out-of-pocket (AIJ sponsored the students and generously provided all accommodations, meals, and transportation), Ashley joined the group that was comprised of students from all over the world; and for one week this last summer immersed herself in the situation of Fukushima, Japan investigating ways to help a landscape and a people she would become somewhat enamored with. What follows is her story. And her images. –Ed, SS]
The schoolgirls, dressed identically in plaid outfits, hung their heads in exhaustion gently rocking from side to side in unison with the movement of the train. As the train slowed at our stop, their bob haircuts swayed across their noses and back again. I didn’t know it yet, but their tiredness foreshadowed the week to come in Fukushima—the place I would be spending the next ten days.
Napping school girls, Fukushima. Photo: A Koger
No doubt you will remember hearing about Fukushima in the recent past. Not many of us will ever forget seeing images of that tidal wave sweeping over the sea wall and engulfing everything in its path. This disaster was unfortunately followed by the news that the tsunami had also caused the explosion of Fukushima 1 at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant on the following day, March 12, 2011. Now I was in this Fukushima, hardly two years past the disaster, and finding myself in a position to explore this region and, if at all possible, offer ideas and inspiration to an area newly abandoned by its citizens.
Abandoned playground, Fukushima. Photo A Koger
But on this day, the day of my arrival, I was more captivated by just observing the people and the landscape as it flew by the train windows. It would not be the first time I would notice this almost charming and close-knit habit of train-napping. In fact, watching people sleep on the train is a comically common occurrence in Japan. Businessmen often offer their shoulders to neighbors who have fallen asleep accidentally. The buzzer that dings at each stop is jarringly loud, perhaps intentionally so that you will wake every few minutes and make sure not to miss your stop. The system is designed to accommodate the very, very tired.
Order and organization, Tokyo Meiji Jingu. Photo A Koger
I was on the train with the sleeping schoolgirls and eight people I had met just hours before at the main terminal of Tokyo Station. We had traveled from subway to bus to commuter train, and had come from Tokyo, the largest city in the world, to one of the most rural and under populated areas in Japan, all in the course of four hours. From passing along the highway and seeing skyscrapers for miles, we were now moving at commuter speed past unending fields of rice and tobacco.
Roads, pedestrians, roads, Tokyo. Photo A KogerRice fields, Fukushima. Photo A Koger.
The nine of us were a diverse group. There were four Japanese students from Meiji University, 4 students from Thailand, and me, the one American attending the workshop from the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts Department of Architecture with professor Hajo Neis of the Portland Architecture Program.
When we disembarked the train, we were greeted by the rest of the students attending the workshop, a group of eight Indian students, a landscape student from Iran, and two more Japanese students from Tokyo University. We communicated in English and asked questions of each other’s backgrounds. I quickly learned that the Indian student were from C.E.P.T. University in Ahmedabad, India, where I had attended a study broad during my junior year of undergraduate. When we learned we had friends in common, we quickly became friendly and verbalized the all too common phrase, ‘what a small world!’ But it was true; it was so interesting that we were all instantly comfortable with each other, even though we didn’t really know what came next on our adventure. It was a sunny, warm day, and we sat outside and joked and waited to see what came next.
UDCT, our workspace, Fukushima. Photo A Koger
We walked through the street of the small town and came to our office for the week; with it’s acronym clearly spelled out in neon orange letters on the building: UDCT- Urban Design Center Tamura, the only open building on the street. The purpose of all of us in Tamura for 10 days was to help with this exact problem. Tamura city, a collection of 5 small towns within rural Fukushima, is a shrinking city. Since the earthquake and subsequent nuclear power plant explosion, this problem has been exacerbated. Many people who were forced to leave during the earthquake have decided to not come back, and Tamura is struggling to survive.
Festival, Tamura: a struggling place. Photo A Koger
In addition to our group of students, we had onboard with us University of Oregon Professor, Hajo Neis, Meiji International University professor Masami Kobayashi, employees of the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ), and employees of the UDCT. Our goal was to learn about Tamura, and use our architecture and urban design skills to come up with ideas for ways to improve Tamura and encourage people to move there and to visit.
After learning the basics about Tamura, our research started the second day. In a single day, we traveled to all the small towns in Tamura and met with interested townspeople to learn about the history of the place and the visions for the future. We were all enthusiastic with what we knew to be “good” ideas: we knew a lot needed to be done, but to each of us, it seemed like a place of opportunity., We were driving through miles of beautiful farm land, and it was easy to forget that there was anything wrong. Then we would see the piles of bags of contaminated soil and be reminded of why Tamura needed our help. On the bus between towns, I industriously sketched ideas and wrote notes of my urban design thoughts. The next morning, we each needed to have a design proposal, and I was squirming with ideas.
Street festival, Fukushima. Photo A Koger
I came up with an idea of connecting the small villages of Tamura with a cycling road. Being a road cyclist myself, a hobby inspired by several years in amongst the avid and somewhat crazed cycling ethos of Portland, Oregon , I quickly fell in love with the winding roads of Tamura and thought it a great place for cycle-tourism. The roads are of high quality and they meander through the beautiful rice field scenery, something I had never seen before traveling to Japan. I was embarrassed when I had to ask, ‘so… where are the grains of rice?’ I quickly learned from Hiroshi, one of our professors from the AIJ, those don’t grow until September and October, just before harvest. Without a single word exchanged, a yen coin was given to me by our driver, a local farmer, to explain. He flipped it over and pointed to the mature rice plant insignia on the back.
Working late night, UDCT, Fukushima. Photo A Koger
My cycle-tourism ideas coincided with some other ideas of students in the workshop, so five of us were grouped together with a theme to explore: ‘Tourism and Existing Local Assets.’ The process moved very quickly, as we didn’t have much time and needed to produce a presentation for the city Mayor and townspeople in two days time. We worked through schematic ideas and tried to come up with a theme for the urban design concept of bringing tourism to Tamura. We mapped all of the existing assets, we surveyed roads; we interviewed Inn owners and shop keepers; we looked at farmland and the vacant buildings on the main streets.
When the day arrived for the mid-week critique, we were given good feedback from the professors and the townspeople, but we had a lot of work to do in the 4 days remaining in the workshop. Amazingly enough, by this time we were already in a routine. We left the hotel by 9 each morning, worked straight until 1, took a quick lunch break, worked until dinner, had a review with our professors, and continued working until exhaustion set in around 10, when we would return to our hotel to relax in the Onsen hot tub for 30 minutes and, then, fall instantly asleep in the tatami room. It was grueling and truly immersive, and I was exhausted; but I was having such a good time I barely noticed how tired I was.
Photoshop generated images from Koger's project: rest space, cafePhotoshop generated images from Koger's project: Cement factory proposalPhotoshop generated images from Koger's project: CYCLE RACE, Tamura
The last few days of the workshop felt intensely like the last week of a studio project. We had too much to do and not enough time. It was rewarding though, because we knew that the more we could show the people of Tamura, the more excited they would be about their city and the more energy could be restored in the community. Our idea had become a little complex, but also refined. We were proposing a system of cycling paths through the region that would reconnect the small towns. At each town, a group of resources would be provided, including a café, cycle repair shop, rest rooms, and convenience store. These resources would be created in the existing vacant buildings, helping to revive the town main streets. A new street signage campaign would modernize the navigation, and flowers would be grown throughout the region to help diversify the scenery along the route.
The Mayor loved our proposal; saying that he would like to implement our signage strategy in Tamura soon. It was really nice to see how all the towns people appreciated our design efforts and it helped them to see hope for the future of the city. The workshop was an extremely satisfying experience.
Every night, no matter how tired, I managed to write a few pages in my diary about the events of the day. I somehow found the energy, and it helped me to unwind after the intensity. I will admit, more than once I fell asleep with pen and diary in hand. The memoirs included in this article are excerpts from my diary.
I have always been interested in visiting Japan. I think my design sensibilities are somehow Japanese: I love concrete architecture, simple spaces, and eating while sitting on the floor. Tadao Ando is my ‘favorite architect,’ if I have to do something as silly as choose only one. My favorite coffee mug that I drink out of every morning has J-A-P-A-N etched into the ceramic base. I drink green tea: the bitter Matcha kind that most people don’t like. I try to live simply. I eat my spaghetti with chopsticks. and I eat sushi with my family for Christmas dinner. I know none of these Asian customs makes me closer to Japan… but I guess I am just saying that I have appreciated, and admired, Japan for a while without really knowing why or where the infatuation began.
Now that I have visited Japan I know that my infatuation has transformed into a respect and a knowing that Japan is a place I feel incredibly comfortable. The most amazing thing to me is that sense of comfort never waivered during my trip, even with the huge contrast in my experiences. I felt just as safe, and welcomed on the busy streets of Tokyo as I did at the workshop while staying in the radiation contaminated Fukushima. The people everywhere are respectful, kind, and thankful for what they have. I actually never felt sad during my trip in Japan. Even in Fukushima I was filled with an overwhelming sense of hope. I have no doubt that the people in Fukushima will overcome the disaster and excel way beyond its boundaries. I respect so much that the Japanese never sit around and feel sorry for themselves. They are constantly propelled with forward momentum, and for that reason I believe they can never fail.
The sense of hope is incredible. The Japanese are the kindest people I have ever met. I hope to always be inspired by this determination and kindness.
Refuge Camp, Fukushima. Photo A Koger
[Ashley Blake Koger graduated from the University of Oregon Masters of Architecture Portland Program in June of this year. She spent the summer traveling, and is now back home in Portland and working for GBD Architects. She yearns to find time to write, read, and bicycle more, and would most likely be happy camping in the forests of the Pacific Northwest indefinitely. She promises to find herself in Japan again soon.]
