Space for Well-being: Chrysanthemum Show Opening Lecture at Smith College
Yoko Kawai was invited to talk on “space for well-being” to open the Chrysanthemum Show at the Botanic Garden of Smith College. It was an honor and excitement to address the enthusiastic audience of 200 people! The Fall Mum Show has been the popular tradition at the Botanic Garden since the early 1900s. Yoko used […]
Yugen and the Art of Mysteriousness in Japanese Architecture
[videojs_video url=”https://pedarch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/PED-Blog-Post-2-1.mp4″ poster=”https://pedarch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Post2.jpg”] Yugen: appreciating the unknown Japan is a country made up of islands. Surrounded by the ocean, its climate is humid and constantly changing. Along the coast, high mountains are often covered in mist and fog. In part, familiarity with these transforming, obscured landscapes–as seen in this scroll from the Edo period–is what […]
Self, Space, and Beyond: Where and How Do We Experience Mindfulness?
Connections between the mind, body, and environment Imagine you are walking through an outdoor path in Kyoto, surrounded by bamboo. While you walk, your blood pressure happens to decrease. Is it because you are taking in the smells of the bamboo as you walk? Is your mind communicating a positive reaction to the space to […]
“Clouds, Bubbles, and Waves” of Japanese architecture
What are “clouds, bubbles, and waves”? They suggest impermanence of Japanese architecture, but also resiliency of it. At the symposium on this very curious subject at Yale School of Architecture, Yoko Kawai of PED had a pleasure to moderate one of the sessions. Japanese architecture is known for its respect to the impermanence of life […]
Designing Mindfulness: Spatial Concepts in Traditional Japanese Architecture
On May 31st, Yoko Kawai is going to talk “Designing Mindfulness: Spatial Concepts in Traditional Japanese Architecture”, at TALKS+ of New York Japan Society. Please join this event!
