Since its foundation in 1990, SFC has been oriented toward “multidiscipline” under its education policy to incorporate new fields of study and interdisciplinary fields. Group projects are a symbol of this policy. The symbolic idea has been that students work in groups toward their unique accomplishments as they occasionally lodge at the school. So, there was no hesitation in setting group projects as the core part of education at SBC and making a series of lodging-type facilities; we were confident in creating them together. Originally, there was a different plan with regard to the usage of the land, but it was temporarily suspended due to social circumstances such as the financial crisis triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and changes in opinions within Keio University. We found it valuable to create this place as a re-creation of an ideal as we were reaching the 25th anniversary of SFC in 2015. At SFC, there are experts in various fields. In particular, instructors in architecture are all very unique. They are active enough to visit overseas sites and disaster-hit-areas, and offer students opportunities to create various things on their own. So we thought, why don’t we build a new campus as a “self-build campus” rather than just wait for donations. Out of such expectations as well as suspicion, volunteers had a meeting and started the discussion in 2014, and SBC (Student-Built Campus) was formally initiated in 2015. Self-building a new campus with the union of instructors and students appeared to be a new ideal. It is memorable that Prof. Hiroto Kobayashi said this was possible when I shared the vision with him. However, as the then Dean of the faculty, I needed to make a major resolution and take on a great deal of responsibility. Beginning with how to ensure the safety of the students and how to explain this project to the university executives and board, it was already a department store of difficulties. With no visibility and no sufficient budget, the challenges ahead were great, but since I said I would do it, I wanted to make the SBC a reality. As Mr. Masaru Yanome and I were involved in the group in slightly different professions, we often talked with each other and sometimes provided support to and sometimes stirred up super-critical missions of those working in the field. We kept taking on challenges keenly in SFC-specific autonomous-decentralized ways, which truly represented the educational philosophy of the school. As one of its characteristic features, SBC incorporates components made by digital fabrication techniques in the β1 building. At SFC, there was an initiative to make the Internet available to every student. Similarly, in 2011, we started to consider creating a fab space to make 3D printing available to every student in order to stimulate innovations for social transformation. When individuals are able to manufacture products, we will be able to produce three-dimensional objects including housing, social infrastructures, environments, and other necessities of life without relying on mass products. In line with this idea, β Factory (DFF-W) makes laser cutters and other cutting machines available to students. I have a feeling that time is catching up with the idea of creating one’s own residential space. The process was difficult, but it was a pleasure to see SBC completed and I am hoping to see its further development.

I have been involved in this project since the university first considered acquiring the land in 2004. There were twists and turns in campus planning but one day I was approached by Prof. Jun Murai and heard that SBC was going to be a student-led project. Although university officials do not normally get involved in educational programs directly, I was interested in the vision and agreed to participate. Since responsibility for design and construction falls on the students, even if the project is student-led, we had to sort out how far the students would take the project and coordinate with Prof. Murai on how to explain this to the university executives and board. While engaging in cost management, as a representative of the department in charge I made specific arrangements for post-completion operations to put the dream into reality. Since I felt Prof. Murai’s passion toward the realization of the residential and experimental campus in my bones, I kept deliberating about ways of realizing it without putting a brake on the project. I also worked to introduce the digital fabrication equipment to make the campus a lot more exciting.

I was approached by Prof. Kobayashi in 2014 when I was a doctoral student, and at first, I experimented to see if I could create a situation in which students could participate and find the project interesting. The first step was to come up with a plan that would rotate between the program invention meetings and the design sessions in turn, and finally, current students and graduates would collaborate to propose one rough draft, which was then authorized by Prof. Murai. After that, I was involved in the project as a project assistant professor attempting to connect students with instructors and graduates and make it a university-wide project. While it was a facility plan, there was a need to go beyond the framework and incorporate SBC into the curriculum to revisit the concept of learning and education at the university. Through trial and error, I worked hard under the SFC’s philosophy with an ambition to update the value and meaning of “university.”

I invited various study groups and individuals across different fields so that students could initiate and participate in not only the construction of buildings but also programs and operations. This is because I believed involvement in our unprecedented project for joint creation beyond individual positions and involvement in the act of creation would result in an ultimate form of learning for students. Nowadays, online connections are the norm due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I believe that meeting people face-to-face and learning from various forms of communication, such as chats, discussions, and dialogues without worrying about time, have the power to change individuals, and I hope that universities be a place for such positive interactions.

The SBC project was a mixture of times when it was really hard and times when it was exciting that this could be the start of something completely new. I took part in the project from its very beginning and particularly appreciated the unique feelings I had at the KANGAKU Conference, where the enthusiasm of each member clashed as they made points regardless of their positions, which was not like top-down, bottom-up, or even democracy but was something new and intriguing. I feel that there was a lot of potential in the way these discussions and developments took place, and I would like to continue to extend such possibilities in the future.

I think SFC has three major attractions. First, there are no barriers. This was apparent by the fact that Mr. Yutaro Muraji recruited designers for the graduate building via SNS, and any OB could become a designer. The building of the OB wing was also conducted through group work, and I felt the importance of such learning even after entering society. Also, to think flexibly even in an ad hoc manner: the layout of the Beta Village initially had no master plan, which surprised me, but the open and free atmosphere can only emerge from that. There are only loose rules and freedom of individuality. I designed β3 to be a space that embodies these three attractions.

I have been involved in the SBC project in various positions, i.e. as a designer of the SbC from 2014 to 2015 and of β3 from 2018 to 2020, and as an instructor of the SBC practice (architecture) course since 2019. In the collaborative work for β3, there were two important factors. First of all, the program was considered designer-driven. Through analysis of the education and research settings of the campus and existing facilities of β Village and conversations with students, we designed workspaces to accommodate multiple groups in work at the same time and minimal capsule-type bedrooms to complement SFC. Second, the five design offices did not share the responsibility of designing the project. They studied and shared all aspects including layout, planning, and materials through half-day meetings, which were held weekly. The enthusiasm was also shared with graduates and constructors who worked in collaboration to create structures, signs, products, and landscapes. As a result, the SBC Practice (architecture), a class taught by the β Village designers, has become a mechanism for this enthusiasm to spread to students as well. Unexpected uses have already been discovered and put into practice.

A landscape to give cohesion to buildings planned by different designers was needed. The design we proposed was really simple. We reserved the maximum-possible vacancy at the center of the landscape by placing a ring-shaped traffic line along the periphery of the site, which is conventionally left as building backyards. In the doughnut-shaped landscape, the field of the vacancy is left for continuous changes of the campus. While the buildings looked rather inward with scarce association with their surroundings, the ring-shaped traffic line is expected to gradually make the buildings look outward. Furthermore, the literally “vacant” field in the middle is expected to be planted and maintained in the natural course of events. I would like to be involved in the process of how the landscape will evolve in the future as it opens up to the community and continues to be proactively worked on by university students.