Urban Lab Global Cities (ULGC): The architect of the day: Atelier Yukio Minobe

9/22/2011

The architect of the day: Atelier Yukio Minobe

I was watching an interesting lecture of a young Japanese architect Yukio Minobe (Atelier Yukio Minobe, also known as Architectural Ecology) that I just discovered. His lecture was organized by the Japanese magazine of Architecture Shinkenchiku/GA/JA/A+U.

Who is he?
Yukio Minobe is an architect and researcher based in Japan where he is the principal of Atelier Yukio Minobe, an agency exploring new forms on design towards integrations of nature and artefacts, ARCHITECTURAL ECOLOGIES, at the interfaces between design, biology, environmental engineering and computer science. He earned a Master of Architecture with Distinction from the Architectural Association School of Architecture's Emergent Technologies and Design in London and a Doctor of Engineering (Architectural Design) from Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan.
He was also an electronics and electrical engineering scholar in Kyoto University before entering Architecture.
Yukio has not only taught architectural designs at Okayama Prefectural University and Kokushikan University in Japan as weel as conducting academic researches, but his experimental design works have been awarded in numerous design competitions internationally. He practiced architecture with professor Kazunari Sakamoto during his PhD student in Tokyo Institute of Technology. Recently, he has given lectures at T.IT., Arup Japan and Oslo School of Architecture and Design.
Currently, he has also given environmental design consultencies with computer simulations for architectural farms, as well as pursuits of his research by design towards integrations between nature and artefacts.

His projects are among others: Red Venation Fence, Cellular Respiration Roof, Respiration Building 01, Parabo Spheric Flower, Catenary Respiration Roof, Branching Respiration Skin.