Help Alex Study Design in Japan!

My name is Alexander Davidson Carroll, and I am a currently enrolled junior in the architecture department at The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), with a focus on nature, culture, and sustainability studies. I am excited to share that this fall I was admitted into a month-long study program in Japan for this coming January. Throughout this course, I will be learning about different types of Japanese traditional design, including architecture, landscape, ceramics, woodwork, textiles, papers, and more, while exploring the modern and contemporary appropriation of the traditional styles. I hope to spend my time observing different methods of construction and organizations of space, which rely on local materials and are integrated within the environment. When I return, I will be compiling these into a travel book which will inform a set of architectural drawings and designs using materials local to New England.

Although I received a significant scholarship for the course itself, airfare and other travel expenses are not included. Paying for these out of pocket is difficult for me to do while I am in school with a limited amount of earning time and potential.

Whether it's $5, $50, or $100, anything you have to give truly means the world.

~As a little incentive: donations of $50 or more will receive a fun little art print in the mail.

With gratitude,

Alex

*What is the appropriate appropriation of cultures?

Pseudo-Western-style architecture, called "Giyofu architecture," superficially resembled Western-style architecture while relying on traditional Japanese techniques in the mid-19th century and disappeared only after a few decades. The reason for this disappearance is that the Japanese started learning Western construction methods and incorporating them into their buildings, which created a hybrid blurring the line between Japanese and Western-style architecture referred to as "Wayo Secchu" architecture.

Cross-cultural hybridization occurs in various design fields, with or without acknowledging the referenced cultures.

In this class, we are exploring the idea of "Giwafu" design, meaning "pseudo-Japanese-style." Just as the Japanese carpenters tried to incorporate Western architectural language as they saw it in Giyofu architecture, the class will produce designs incorporating the Japanese formal language as we see it. Globalization has caused the loss of cultural identities in many parts of the world. Overall, this course will question a positive reappropriation of cultural references that can result in exciting and surprising design outcomes.