In this rapidly changing world, people more and more often notice that we are not so different from our planet’s species. After analyzing Sendai Mediatheque by architect Toyo Ito and studying the text of Steven Johnson “Emergence – the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software” I found a lot of similarities.

At first it doesn’t seem like this two projects: one being a building and the other a book, could have something in common. When we look at the Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito, we see that it has three main components: skin, plate and tube. Every one of these elements by itself does not create a structure or a building, but when they are put together, they create a revolutionary, transparent cultural media center with unique engineering systems and aesthetics. In the “Emergence…” by Steven Johnson we can find similar concepts, where one component/element/creature can still exist on its own, but multiple can create a solid structure/organism or life.

Here author relies on the life of ants, and how they create this ever changing organism where each “social citizen” knows what he or she is supposed to do in order for their colony to survive. He also mentions DNA and how every piece of it is essential to the organism. By removing something in it or simply changing it, will change the organism itself. Just like in Toyo Ito’s cultural media center where every floor is designed in the way that they have their purpose within the building. It acts as an organism – architectural organism, meaning if you ever to change the function of one floor, it will automatically change the whole purpose, flow or functionality of the building.

After reading text by Steven Johnson and analyzing Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito, I found it very helpful in order understand that we, architects create these organisms, but in different scales. Starting from the smallest – a building, then neighborhood and finally – city. So I guess my personal research/project that I would like to develop in the future will be creating and studying these organisms. I would also like to create them in the way where every element/component I use will have a purpose.

The Moriyama House by the Office of Ryue Nishizawa, located in Tokyo, Japan. The main idea was to rethink traditional Japanese architecture and create a project that can be inhabited by the owners and at the same time easily rented. This idea became possible with the space structure that consists of a group of rooms different in size, scattered around the site. Garden or courtyard here works as a bonding element within the rooms. Basically each room and garden in this compound is a space in which a person may enjoy his daily life. The project was designed in the special way for the rooms to stand apart from each other and maintain privacy. None of the windows face each other, they either face the wall or the sky. In this house owner can decide which cluster of rooms will be used as residence or as rental rooms.

Stanford Kwinter talks in his ‘Cooking, Yo-ing, Thinking’ how nature and technology can exist together. He disagrees with a saying that computer is just a tool. He compares them to the stone tool that once started the evolution of human kind. This “tool” changed the way we think, the way we perceive things and even the way we live. Computers allow us to see things in a different way, it helps us to understand the world better. They create digital environment that helps us to communicate and interact with each other and nature. He said in his topic that computer should be used to bring humankind closer to nature and create a bond between cultural, natural and digital environments.

The subject for my personal research that I would probably like to develop in the future will be about how modern architecture could be incorporated with nature. This is something that Stanford Kwinter talked about in his ‘Cooking, Yo-ing, Thinking’. Since technology is a big part of modern architecture I would like to see how these two elements will exist together with nature. And how this architecture will possibly help people to get closer to nature and not push us further apart from it.