'Japaneseness' in the UK Built Environment: An Ethnographic Approach

在英国，日本文化和美学越来越多地融入我们的日常生活，从近藤麻理惠（Marie Kondo）在我们的电视屏幕上整理，到格拉斯哥咖啡店里的金木杯（“金细木工”）。但这对我们的建筑环境意味着什么呢？与Takero Shimazaki建筑事务所（t-sa）合作，第二博士生Jennifer Coates博士将探索日本美学，或被认为是“日本”的美学，如何塑造全球环境，从英国的私人住宅设计到酒店、公共企业，以及世界各地的建筑实践展览。通过t-sa的工作场所人种学，以及对t-sa客户、委托机构和相关策展专家的采访，科茨将研究如何在建筑实践中发展思想，这些建筑实践经常被委托从事在某些特定方面被想象为“日本”的项目。根据她之前对流行文化受众的研究，科茨还将对普通公众进行调查和参与性观察，以了解关于日本美学的想法是如何通过电视、电影、杂志和互联网网站传播的。这些混合的方法将识别出t-sa内部创意发展与公众对某些t-sa美学或建筑风格的“日本”理解之间的差距。从一个项目的发展到它的接受，探索这样的滑移和抽象，将揭示如何想象和理解“日本”美学在日本之外，产生新的方式来理解全球影响，或感知全球影响，在我们的直接环境。作为借调者（Coates）所承担的一个名为“日本”的大型项目的一部分，在日本之外，这次借调将允许Coates从一个领先的建筑实践中研究这种正在进行的现象，该建筑实践经常被委托从事被认为具有“日本”主题的项目，并被邀请在国际展览上代表日本建筑原则的前沿。科茨将研究在客户讨论和机构邀请展览或讨论日本风格的建筑时引用“日本”的含义，使用民族志的方法来理解如何使用“日本”的概念来交流广泛的建筑元素、主题和情绪。这将是科茨目前的图书项目“日本”的第五章的基础，“日本之外的日本”，重点是“建筑环境中的“日本性””。根据借调经验，Coates和t-sa将合作撰写一篇研究论文，探讨日本和“日本性”与可持续发展之间的紧张关系，而实际受日本影响的美学元素（例如钢筋混凝土建筑，或对新建筑的偏好）往往不环保。在这方面，本文将讨论气候紧急情况以及建筑行业趋势、利润和可持续性之间的紧张关系。最后，在借调期间，科茨还将在英国建立一个设计师、景观建筑师和其他创意实践的联系数据库，在他们的作品中引用“日本性”原则，用于t-sa面向客户的工作，并为科茨的更大的图书项目提供信息。所要求的资源将用于支付科茨12个月的年薪0.4镑；36次从谢菲尔德到伦敦的往返火车，参加员工会议，观察客户会议，并采访t-sa过去的客户；12次日本相关创意实践及英国实地考察，编制联系人数据库；还有一次去中国参观日本基金会举办的日本建筑展，t-sa就是其中的主角。T-sa将以员工时间、办公空间和档案访问的形式提供实物支持，估计占项目总成本的25%。

Japanese culture and aesthetics are increasingly woven through our everyday lives in the UK, from Marie Kondo tidying on our TV screens to a kintsugi ('golden joinery') cup in a Glasgow coffee shop. But what does this mean for our built environment? In partnership with Takero Shimazaki Architects (t-sa), secondee Dr Jennifer Coates will explore how Japanese aesthetics, or aesthetics perceived to be 'Japanese,' are shaping the global environment, from the design of private homes in the UK to hotels, public businesses, and exhibitions on architectural practice around the world.Through workplace ethnography at t-sa and interviews with t-sa clients, commissioning bodies, and related curatorial experts, Coates will investigate how ideas are developed within an architectural practice that is often commissioned to work on projects that are imagined as 'Japanese' in some particular aspect. Drawing from her previous research with popular culture audiences, Coates will also conduct surveys and participant observation with members of the general public, in order to understand how ideas about Japanese aesthetics are communicated through television, film, magazines, and Internet sites. These mixed methods will identify any gaps between the development of creative ideas within t-sa, and public understanding of certain t-sa aesthetics or architectural styles as 'Japanese.' Exploring such slippages and abstractions from the development of a project to its reception will shed light on how 'Japanese' aesthetics are imagined and understood outside Japan, giving rise to new ways of understanding the global influences, or perceptions of global influence, within our immediate environment.Part of a larger project undertaken by the secondee (Coates) titled 'Japan' Outside Japan, this secondment will allow Coates to study this ongoing phenomenon from within a leading architectural practice which is regularly commissioned to work on projects perceived to have a 'Japanese' theme, and invited to represent the cutting edge of Japanese architectural principles at international exhibitions. Coates will investigate what is meant by invoking 'Japan' in client discussions and institutional invitations to exhibit or discuss Japanese-inspired architecture, using an ethnographic approach to understand how ideas of 'Japan' are used to communicate a broad range of architectural elements, themes, and moods. This will be the foundation for Chapter 5 of Coates' current book project, 'Japan' Outside Japan, which focuses on "'Japaneseness' in the Built Environment". Drawing from the secondment experience, Coates and t-sa will collaborate on a research paper that which will explore the tensions between associations of Japan and 'Japaneseness' with sustainability while actual Japan-influenced aesthetic elements (e.g. ferro-concrete construction, or preferences for new builds) are often not environmentally sound. In this respect, the paper will address the climate emergency as well as tensions between trends, profit, and sustainability in the architecture sector. Finally, during the secondment, Coates will also build a contact database of designers, landscape architects, and other creative practices in the UK that invoke principles of 'Japaneseness' in their works, for use in t-sa's client-facing work and to inform Coates' larger book project.The resources requested will cover Coates' salary at 0.4 FTE for 12 months; 36 return train journeys from Sheffield to London to join staff meetings, observe client meetings, and interview past clients of t-sa; 12 visits to Japan-related creative practices and site visits in the UK to compile the contact datadatabase; and 1 visit to China to observe the Japan Foundation exhibition on Japanese architecture, in which t-sa features. T-sa will provide in kind support in the form of staff time, office space, and archive access, estimated at 25% of the total cost of the project.