Stories about Sustainability – Forests

Stories about Sustainability presents ideas inspired by architecture, materials and history from around the world.

For the second event in the series Takaharu Tezuka, founder of Tezuka Architects, will present the Asahi Kindergarten. He will then be joined in conversation with Kate Davies, co-director of Design + Make at the AA’s forest campus Hooke Park, to consider the importance of building in wood and the benefits of looking back to the materiality and craft of the past in order to inform more sustainable building practices now and in the future.

Takaharu Tezuka founded Tezuka Architects with Yui Tezuka in 1994. The practice set out not just to design architecture, but to change people's lives and societies for the better through the means of architecture. Tezuka Architects, funded by Japan Committee for UNICEF, designed and reconstructed the Asahi Kindergarten on a highland area using the huge trees that were killed by the salt water of 2011 tsunami, exactly 400 years after they were planted in 1611. The aim of the project was to express that the tree was not only the building material used to construct the school, but it is also home to the spirit of the townspeople. Traditional joinery and wedges without any metal joints were used.

Kate Davies is Co-Director of Design + Make. Her work explores the complexities of contemporary landscape. She is co-founder of the nomadic studio, Unknown Fields, and art and architecture collective Liquid Factory. Her work has been exhibited internationally, showcased by mainstream media and is held in the permanent collections of major museums. As well as being director of Design + Make, Kate is Head of Media Studies at the AA.

Stories about Sustainability is a lecture series that accompanies the exhibition The Future is a Journey to the Past: Stories about Sustainability curated by Mario Cucinella Architects, which will be held in the AA Gallery from 23 September until 29 October.

Image: Sketch of Asahi Kindergarten by Takaharu Tezuka