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Speed of Change, Discovery, Love

The Disney theme-park inspired love hotel close to my office looks like it’s about to close. Although the only people I’ve seen walking in and out are elderly salarimen and their spritely nieces it adds colour to the neighbourhood. I'm left wondering what kind of building will go up in its place.

Buildings in Japan are often constructed to last 20 or so years - before being rapidly torn down to be re-incarnated as something else. Local neighbourhood skylines that might take decades to evolve in cities like Frankfurt or Bristol change with rapid progression and I'm intrigued to what extent the speed of change - both in terms of form and function affects our perception of locality, history. How does it affect wayfinding - our ability to find or give directions? In a world where it is increasingly easy to (geo) tag places with memories how does the speed and velocity of change affect how this information is discovered, used? When, like in this love hotel, there's a emotional backdrop behind each and every encounter, room, and night of the duration of this building's existence some of these stories will make it into the ethersphere. So that when half a year later an office complex goes up on the same plot of land Tanaka san cross references his new desk location with the presence of who has been here, in this exact spot over time, and may well smile (especially if a photo was also carefully/throughtlessly uploaded).

And if you'll excuse the tangent - for individuals and cultures with a belief in ghosts and other-worldly presences to what extent will the digital blend with the ethereal and the physical? The one thing I know for sure - the exorcist will need to include data cache flushing skiills in his or her repertoire.

Hmm, ast call for boarding. Destination? West coast US to catch up with our Calabasas design studio, a couple of presentations to share ideas on design research (new material will eventually be posted here, plus a conference that hopefully challenges assumptions about, well, everything.

Would you turn down a weekend in the rockies? No, neither would I.

See you on the other side.

Writing from Tokyo | February 28, 2007 | Permalink