DESIGNWORKS Vol.05

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Interview with Yasuaki OnodaInterviewer: Before this interview, I believe you visited Toho studios, Toho Theatre Creation Bldg. and Shinjuku Mylord Mosaic Street.Before we hear your impression of these works, please introduce to us how you are involved in the architectural planning or how you play various roles in developing the architectural design. Meticulousness and AmbiguityOnoda: When an architectural planner is involved in the actual building process, there are three modes of involvement: as the client's agent, as a collaborative architect, or as a design consultant. When I worked on Sendai Mediatheque, my involvement was long-term, ranging from programming and planning for the competition to design support after the architect was selected, and support for planning and operation after the facility was opened for business. The role of a collaborative architect is to work together with the architect in aspects from area allocation, functional configuration, and the actual layout design to the fixtures and other aspects related to the actions of users. Meanwhile, the role of a design consultant is to provide knowledge about facility configuration and support for programming, under the architect's leadership.Interviewer: You have planned many facilities such as schools and local government halls. How does planning differ in public facilities, compared to private facilities such as the currently featured works?Onoda: Well, public and private facilities differ in their purposes. For example, although the Toho Theatre Creation Building is also a meeting hall, there was a great deal of meticulous attention in advance with regard to how it would be operated, and that was then realized through coordination between the architect and the client's engineers and so on. In contrast, in the case of a public facility such as the Reihoku Community Hall, the business plan is not as highly detailed, and the users are often amateurs. In many cases, the purpose is quite broad, including aims of a public nature such as "revitalizing the community." One of the things I am expected to deal with is the question of how best to realize this kind of highly abstract aspiration in concrete terms. Recently, in addition to the planning of buildings, my work has frequently been coordinated with simulations of operating costs and personnel allocation.Interviewer: Does the discussion ever move in the direction of making major programming changes, including determination of the project's scale and budget?Onoda: I haven't caused any budgets to be either increased or decreased lately (laughing). But it is sometimes possible to achieve a variety of synergistic effects just by making slight changes or adding something that's a little different while still achieving the basic functions. Helping to add a mechanism of this sort can enhance the public nature of the facility. I think that is the correct approach.Interviewer: In a PFI project for Kirameki Plaza, the program itself was changed in addition to earthquake reinforcement.Onoda: It was good that the functional changes and earthquake reinforcement were handled together in an integrated manner. Because this was a private finance initiative (PFI)*1 project, it was necessary to consider the entire package from the start. Many schools are undergoing earthquake reinforcement projects, but since earthquake reinforcement is handled by a different administrative route than functional changes for an educational institution, it is rather difficult for functional changes to be combined with earthquake reinforcement. Even if a school building undergoes earthquake reinforcement and is preserved without any other grounds of Toho Studios, and it's next to a river, so it's a scenic place for a pedestrian path. The design suggests an invitation to outsiders to come and see the cherry blossoms. This could be called the starting point of public nature. I believe that public nature is closely related to the practice of incorporating a type of ambiguity and redundancy*4 into a building in advance. This is merely my own opinion, but I believe that this is what makes for a place where we, the people related to a building, are able to exercise our capabilities. The three conditions of public nature which I just mentioned seem to suggest that a facility that is public in nature is one that can be used and perceived in multiple ways, instead of being strictly limited to a certain use only. Sendai Mediatheque always keeps its indoor ground floor portion open until 10 PM, and for this reason it is perceived as a public space. Although this is a significant risk for the business, it is a very good thing for local residents because it is open to them as a public space. The business manages the space, but the people who use it also cooperate to keep it clean voluntarily. This is a good example which suggests that public nature can only develop on the basis of this kind of mutual understanding.Interviewer: Shinjuku Mylord Mosaic Street is an open space that people pass through, but it consists of stores and is not a public space. What are your views concerning redundancy in private commercial facilities?Onoda: Mylord Mosaic Street is an interesting phenomenon in its excellent use of an urban crevice, while holding onto that ambiguous nature. However, the question of redundancy in commercial facilities is quite difficult. Benjamin R. Barber*5 has written that shopping malls are dangerous places even though they appear to be places where everyone can enjoy abundance and freedom. First, it's impossible to get to the mall without a car. And then when you get there, it's full of security cameras and security guards, and anyone who misbehaves is thrown out somewhere beyond the public eye. For commerce, this kind of system of monitoring and exclusion is unavoidable. While Gyre is a purely commercial space, it has been praised for providing a three-dimensional public street. Still, strictly speaking, exclusion does occur, and this does not completely fit into the concept of public nature. I would like to discuss the differences between public spaces and shared or common spaces which are provided for the use of a certain community. Although these concepts seem similar, they are in fact quite different. For example, non-members are excluded from a plaza which is for use by members of a certain community. These kinds of communities are characterized by assimilation and exclusion, but the concept of "public" is not characterized by assimilation or exclusion. Gyre, for example, is a space that is used in common by persons who share a certain consumption style. Places of a public nature need to have a kind of tolerance which allows people to try different types of behavior or lifestyles, but that is not the case at Gyre. Security is considered an absolute necessity in modern society, so this kind of tolerance is not treated as a priority. Based on this line of thinking, it seems somewhat paradoxical to expect the private sector to provide space of a public nature and to take on the associated risks. I think this should literally be the role of the public sector. For instance, the public sector initiates a public kind of mechanism in the form of Cat Street, and Gyre provides a concordant response. It might be a good thing for this kind of integrated public-private mechanism to be created, so that people passing by could experience with a zone that fuses public and common spaces; but there are limits to how fully this can be achieved. Still, the spatial configuration is impressive. The exterior is a textured black; the indoor commercial changes, it still may not be a suitable school building for the twenty-first century.Interviewer: Is it possible to apply the PFI method to public infrastructure investment?Onoda: That is a difficult question. The PFI mechanism was developed under the U.S. and British legal systems, and it was transplanted to Japan, whose legal system is based on that of continental Europe; so there are various inherent limitations. We have published an article*2 that gives more details on this subject. One of the issues related to PFI is that of how to resolve incompleteness in the specifications which are presented in advance. In PFI projects in Great Britain, after an operator is selected, both parties negotiate with each other to reach an agreement and resolve those inadequacies; but in Japan, because of restrictions in accounting laws, it's basically necessary for the contract to be signed immediately after the bidding process. Changes in the content of the specifications are put off until after the contract is signed, and this often makes it necessary to readjust the design under quite challenging circumstances. Knowing about these difficulties, I was frankly surprised at the various steps that were taken at Kirameki Plaza, and I was impressed by the level of technical skill that was needed for their realization. Still, there may have been different ways to allocate and combine its functions that could have led to even greater synergy. Of course, I believe that the end product is a highly valuable item of infrastructure.Interviewer: To create an outstanding public facility, is it necessary to allow some latitude for ambiguity in the process of its creation?Onoda: Qualifications-based selection (QBS)*3 is often used in the U.S. when selecting architects. After narrowing the field down to about three candidates by reviewing the documents, they visit each architect's actual works and interview the building administrators. This is a way of finding out whether the candidates are able not only to develop attractive proposals, but also to rationally carry out their proposals. Putting aside the difficult questions such as funding, the key is to select highly reliable professionals, rather than to decide everything very specifically on paper as in the case of a PFI project. It would be good if this approach was adopted more widely, but it is so difficult to explain that it hasn't really taken off. I think it will be interesting if this kind of approach becomes more widespread and there is greater flexibility in architect selection. Public competitions are not only a suitable mechanism for selecting a good proposal, but also could provide an excellent opportunity for everyone to discuss the nature of the public aspects to be achieved by the building. This kind of discussion would also improve the literacy of the general public. It is quite unfortunate that public competitions are rarely used in this way.Spatial redundancyInterviewer: You spoke of the "public nature" of buildings. Is it possible for private facilities to also have a public nature in some sense?Onoda: There is so much that could be said on the topic of the public nature of buildings. The historian of Political thought Junichi Saito has stated three conditions regarding public nature: first, that the facility is open and non-exclusive; second, that it maintains pluralism; and third, that it offers a certain interest that draws people from diverse backgrounds together. A park with flowering trees is a good example, because all kinds of people come into an open space with the shared interest of enjoying the flowers together in a friendly atmosphere. Taking that same example, there are cherry trees growing on the "Attempt of Recreation of Cities -Public Nature of Architecture-"Interview