ELEMENTS OF INUJIMA
Inujima, Japan, 2023
UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO Kengo Kuma Lab
Krzysztof Juda / Prof. Toshiki Hirano
We live in a world of excess. This excess is both physical and virtual. Our built environment is filled with countless objects. 6,000 tons of debris are flying around in low Earth orbit at 18,000 miles per hour. 3,400 pieces of microplastic are floating in one liter of water in Mariana Trench. More than 40 billion photos and videos have been posted on instagram, and a sum of 59 zettabytes of data was produced and consumed worldwide in the year 2020. How can we formulate a new model that directly addresses the excess without mediating it through single system frameworks?
Inujima has a perimeter of 3.6 km and an overall area of 0.54 km2. The port and a refinery museum are located on the east side of the island, and house projects by Kazuyo Sejima are scattered in the area on the north side of the middle of the island. There is a quarry on the west side of the island, and a chemical plant on the outlying island of Inu-no-shima on the west side, which manufactures fragrances for making city gas smells.
This studio is a collaboration with Princeton University, SCI-Arc, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Pratt Institute, and Tsinghua University.
