Architecture Competition Kurgi Observation Tower Honorable mention – Koki Masumi and Makoto Wada

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to one of our Honorable mention winners for our “Kurgi Observation Tower” competition – Koki Masumi and Makoto Wada from Japan!

Koki Masumi and Makoto Wada from Japan

Makoto Wada Architects and Masumi Architecture studio are both one-person architectural firms based in Tokyo. Makoto founded Makoto Wada Architects in 2007 after working at two architectural firms in Sapporo and Tokyo. Koki started his own practice in 2019 after working for several architectural firms in the United States and Japan.

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance, what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where the company/individuals have been involved?

Makoto has been working on a wide range of design projects, and his experience including designing private houses and commercial buildings in Japan, as well as graphic and industrial design, while Koki has mainly been working on medium-scale building projects in different parts of the world. They both have strong experiences working on various public building projects in developing countries; through one of those projects they actually met and started to seek out new projects together.

What does architecture mean to you and what is the role of an architect in your society?

What architecture means to us is a coexistence of onceness, inherency, uniqueness, concreteness, arbitrariness, originality, discoverability, repetition, abstraction, typicity, sociality, institutionality, and normality. We believe that the role of architects in our society is to explore that coexistence and feed it back to society.

Why do you participate in architecture vision competitions?

By exploring architecture with actual construction plans in mind and outputting those ideas, we grow.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture vision competitions?

Just put yourself in the midst of difficulties if you wish to grow. Also, a deadline could make you get out of bed.