The criteria for architecture after the tsunami is humbleness
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of humility in architectural design, especially after a disaster.
Kengo Kuma's quote highlights the need for architects to adopt a humble approach when rebuilding after catastrophic events like tsunamis. This humility should inform their designs, acknowledging the power of nature and the fragility of human life, prioritizing sustainability and respect for the environment over grandeur or excess.
In practice
During a talk on sustainable building practices, one might reference Kuma's quote to encourage architects to design with humility.
You could say that my aim is ‘to recover the place’. The place is a result of nature and time; this is the most important aspect. I think my architecture is some kind of frame of nature. With it, we can experience nature more deeply and more intimately. Transparency is a characteristic of Japanese architecture; I try to use light and natural materials to get a new kind of transparency.
Most of the wonderful places in the world were not made by architects but by the people.
A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces, and reinforce the structures of urban life.
It is insufficient for architecture today to directly implement an existing building typology; it instead requires architects to carefully examine the whole area with new interventions and programmatic typologies
A profound design process eventually makes the patron, the architect, and every occasional visitor in the building a slightly better human being.
All buildings, large or small, public or private, have a public face, a facade; they therefore, without exception, have a positive or negative effect on the quality of the public realm, enriching or impoverishing it in a lasting and radical manner. The architecture of the city and public space is a matter of common concern to the same degree as laws and language—they are the foundation of civility and civilisation.
We try to make buildings last long and be resilient but also be not so idiosyncratic that they can't change.
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