1 August – 3 September 2025
The Rothwell Tokyo Intensive Travel Studio 2025, led by the Rothwell co-chairs Atelier Bow-Wow and co-ordinated by Associate Professor Lee Stickells and Dr Amina Kaskar, investigated the theme of the Urban-Rural Commons through site immersion, observation, and drawing. Students travelled across Japan, engaging with communities, landscapes, and everyday practices that blur the line between urban and rural life. Through the lens of Satoyama, a traditional concept of living harmoniously with nature, students explored how material practices and cultural values shape spaces of gathering, labour, and care.
Urban Rural Commons: Japan Documented on Cards presented a collection of drawing cards and accompanying photographs, capturing the students’ observations, speculations, and reflections. Each card is both a record and a proposition, a fragment of a larger dialogue on how architecture might emerge from relationships, rituals, and resourcefulness, rather than from fixed typologies or autonomous forms.
Together, these fragments form a collective inquiry into how architecture can nurture connection, adaptability, and coexistence across urban and rural terrains.
The exhibition was officially opened on 1 August 2025 by Professor Donald McNeill, Dean and Head of School of Architecture, Design and Planning and ran until 3 September 2025. The exhibition was curated by a group of ARCH9114 Rothwell Research Studio elective students, led by Emi Amaki and Nachiket Nalamati.
Images by Maja Baska