Based in Tokyo and Kyoto, the tour examined contemporary and historic Japanese design across various scales and media, featuring daily walks — traverse “noodles” — that thematically and geographically connected notable places to their surrounding urban and infrastructural conditions. Continuing last year’s theme, “Japanese Noodles,” the title of the course playfully references both the meandering paths of the walks and Japan’s rich culinary culture, including kaedama, a second serving of noodles.

The noodles, averaging 15,000 steps a day, explored diverse neighborhoods and regions, revealing complex layers of experience. Visits included museums, gardens, buildings, transportation hubs, and distinct urban morphologies and vernaculars. Students also had time for individual exploration on days off and a three-day mid-tour break to travel to various parts of the country.

Without adequate space to inventory the entire 250-strong list, the following examples illustrate the breadth and richness of the places traversed and experiences encountered:

  • visiting Studio GROSS, which renovated an akiya (empty house) in Arakawa-ku, Tokyo, to serve as a home, office, and neighborhood gallery
  • a tour of historic temples and shrines in Kamakura, a scenic city and historic capital turned contemporary tourist haven
  • a tour of Japan Women’s University Mejiro Campus, hosted by Professor Kaz Yoneda of bureau0-1, touring recent buildings designed by Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA
  • the same-day viewing of the cavernous Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel (dubbed the “Underground Shrine”), the endless expanse of Metropolitan Tokyo from the Tokyo Skytree observation decks, and historic ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) at the Sumida Hokusai Museum
  • an afternoon spent exploring the urban landscape of Shibuya with architecture students from the laboratory of Souhei Imamura, professor at Chiba Institute of Technology and long-time instructor during past UBC Tokyo study abroad programs
  • a feast of nagashi soumen, thin wheat noodles served sliding in an inclined bamboo halfpipe, in a hundred-year-old minka (farmhouse)
  • visits to notable and ‘off the beaten track’ temples and shrines in Kyoto and environs
  • a visit to Tai-an teahouse, a 16th century national treasure designed by Sen no Rikyu, a key figure in the development of the Japanese tea ceremony
  • collaborating on a home-cooked meal (curry udon noodles, to fit the course theme) at the Hiraiwa, a century-old, tatami-floored former “teahouse” (brothel) turned ryokan (guesthouse) turned student accommodation, the group’s home in Kyoto

The trip was bookended by a two-day preparatory seminar and a post-trip research project. The seminar featured introductory material on Tokyo and Kyoto, and student-led presentations on the itinerary and themes of each day’s walk, providing conceptual lenses into Japan’s nuanced urbanity. During the trip, students co-led daily walks with the instructors, offering insights and questions for discussion.

After the trip, students conducted research projects on specific topics observed during the tour to explore interconnected confluences and contingencies of experience. These projects covered the experience of Tokyo’s railway networks, the socio-cultural aspects of building and landscape elements, Japanese urban rituals, the relationships between spatial typologies and social subjectivity, and more. The projects will be displayed, and noodle dishes served, at the Japan Good Times event on November 1 in the Lasserre lobby.