OVERVIEW

This joint design studio is a collaborative project between the Department of Landscape Architecture at University of Washington and the Department of Landscape Architecture in Chiba University, Japan.

The purpose of this studio is to engage in cross-cultural design collaboration involving two groups of undergraduate Landscape Architecture students in Japan and the United States. In this studio, the students from two sides will work together to develop urban design proposalsfor two historic neighborhoods facing similarly challenging issues of urban revitalization in Japan and the U.S.- Kogane District in Matsudo and Chinatown-International District in Seattle. The similarities of issues and the differences in social and cultural contexts provides a rich setting for exploring cross-culturaldesign collaboration and understanding of global and local spatial processes. In addition, the collaborative experience will provide an opportunity for critical reflection on the culture-space relationship in one's home environment.

Course Objectives:

• Develop international and cross-cultural perspectives in an undergraduate design studio.
• Examine urban design issues and practice critically and comparatively across cultures and places and in both global and local processes.
• Develop a model of design collaboration and skills in communication and collaboration across physical and cultural barriers using technological as well as visual and linguistic means.
• Develop long-term sustaining collaborative relationship between the partner institutions, including faculty and students.
  

Cross-cultural Design Collaboration

Cultural hybridity and contested place identities and meanings have become everyday experiences that reflect changes in cities and communities around the world. Globally, economic and technological forces are redefining roles of cities and regions and transporting models of urban development and design across national and geographical boundaries. In the meantime, the making of urban places and communities continue to be subject to specific local cultural and place identities and meanings. In the face of the complex and often-intersecting global and local urban processes, the field of environmental and urban design increasingly requires cross-cultural understanding at both global and local scales.

Learn More:

Department of Landscape Architecture (UW)
Faculty of Horticulture (Chiba)
Global Classroom Project (UW)