Sumai no Boken (Housing Adventure – Building a Place to Live)

Based on a variety of architectural examples and studies, this work demonstrates the possibility of direct close links between human life and housing construction. In addition to studies by five authors and editors from the field of architecture (Kinoshita Isami, Uchida Seizo, Matsumura Shuichi, Miyamae Mariko, Murata Makoto), special articles titled “Clues to Understanding the Nishida Philosophy— From the Created to the Creating” and “Relationship with Human Presence” were contributed by two philosophers, Fukui Kazuteru and Uchiyama Takashi, respectively.
 
Matsumura authored two studies. One is titled “The Future of Relationships in Housing Production.” In this study, he analyzes the relationship between occupants and dwellings in modern Japanese society, with reference to studies published in the 1970s concerning the relationship of people to their homes by the Dutch architect, N. John Habraken, who severely criticized the supply of large volumes of public housing (mass housing) centered in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s for ignoring the individuality of occupants. Matsumura then clarifies the technological and organizational background of mass customization, which was highly developed by Japanese housing production as of the 1980s. He mentions that uniform housing supply, which ignored the requirements of individual occupants as once criticized by Habraken, arrived at a completely different point, but later focusses on the anonymous relationship between the occupants and producers that is revealed. He also considers how to transform this modern relationship into a richer relationship. Specifically, he focusses on the possibility that those managing housing production, who have not been addressed by technical studies in the past, have the quality of being part of the only occupational category in direct contact with occupants, and suggests a method that introduces elements of a movement toward housing construction led by occupants, which has now appeared in new fields such as self-renovation.
 
Matsumura’s second study is titled, “Self-actualization by Technologists in Housing Production.” In the above-mentioned “Future of Relationships in Housing Production,” he dealt with matters related to the individual identities of occupants, but here, he takes up matters related to the individual identities of creators, particularly technicians (artisans). Having observed how the past world of artisans has been transformed by advancing specialization, a type of editing activity that will relocate technicians in housing construction has become important; a new image of technicians is demanded, along with the formation of new teams in fields such as the renovation of existing housing. At the same time, he presents an outline of multi-skilled workers and teams as a future direction.
 

(Written by MATSUMURA Shuichi, Project Professor, School of Engineering / 2018)