Shoebox shelter

Tokyo architect Kyohei Sakaguchi
brings countercultural Japanese ingenuity
to this year’s État d’Urgence

IMAGINATION, HUMOUR AND NECESSITY: Sakaguchi

by MICHAEL-OLIVER HARDING

Last night, Wednesday, Nov. 26, Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable (ATSA) kicked off its 10th annual État d’Urgence, a five-day festival designed to bridge the gap between Montrealers and its disenfranchised communities, all the while showcasing art that confronts social exclusion head on. Organizers, artists, volunteers, the homeless and members of the public gathered at the makeshift refugee camp at Place Émilie-Gamelin for the unveiling of a video capsule demanding that the city stop fining its homeless population. État d’Urgence spokesperson François Avard argued taxpayers’ dollars would be better spent building social housing and covering the salaries of street workers instead of picking up the tab for homeless individuals’ recurring and ineffectual jail stints.

“One of our fundamental human rights is access to shelter,” says ATSA co-founder Annie Roy, “so if we’re not able to provide them with one, we shouldn’t be ousting them from parks and public spaces, as they’ll end up seeking refuge in dark alleys, which becomes dangerous for them.”

Some assembly required

Until Sunday, an eclectic crop of État d’Urgence collaborators will make their case via performances and creative explorations, with one of the more vibrant artistic standpoints coming courtesy of young Japanese artist Kyohei Sakaguchi. His main interest lies in an emerging architectural form that involves building complex dwellings from society’s waste. “I had always wanted to design houses, but as soon as I began studying architecture, I realized that everyone there viewed homes as products and goods, with the end goal being to sell a land, to sell a house,” says Sakaguchi in ATSA’s offices, fresh off a plane from Tokyo. Disillusioned with the business of architecture, Sakaguchi started paying closer attention to the dwellings of people living on Tokyo streets, and was dazzled by the ingenuity and inventiveness of these self-made living quarters.

“These people build homes using proper measurements and interesting structural qualities, and they use materials found on the street, a sustainable model for our environment and society,” he says. Given the illegality of setting up house on public land, these compact homes are built to be collapsible, with three parts—a roof, a living area and a raised bottom floor acting as storage—that can be dismantled and reassembled in minutes.

In 2004, Sakaguchi published Zero Yen House, a book detailing the resourcefulness of this nomadic Japanese population. Sakaguchi believes that this marginal group is ushering in a new chapter in the history of architectural design, saying, “It is a reinterpretation of the idea of the architectural module as an extension of the human body.” While he does concede that the Japanese government harbours similar disdain toward its vagrant communities as Canada does, he’s out to show the world the cleverness and skill with which these migrants utilize found materials to build complex shelters.

TRULY SUSTAINABLE: A Zero Yen house

Gardens go mobile

Having travelled to Paris, Nairobi and Vancouver, he’s realized just how attentive to detail the Japanese people are. “Those who live in parks and by the riverside in Tokyo seek out industrial waste like 12-volt car batteries or even obtain small solar panels to run electronic devices like televisions and radios,” he says. Another testament to Japanese ingenuity is the “mobile garden” phenomenon that Sakaguchi has been chronicling, whereby residents who are cramped for space but longing for a little greenery set up a mini-garden on wheels that looks more like a luggage rack than fertile land. “There is little space for people to grow a private garden in Tokyo, so people use their imagination and sense of humour to create what I call a 4D garden,” he says.

Sakaguchi will put his humanistic brand of architecture to practice at Place Émilie-Gamelin until Sunday, where he hopes to create a bridge with Montreal’s nomadic community and demonstrate the creativity each individual can employ to improve life in an urban context. “I will make a Zero Yen House out of materials I find here,” says Sakaguchi. “I want to find out where people fetch their drinking water, pick up food and set up bedding. I’ve also brought solar panels and a very small TV to reproduce the feeling of street life back in Japan, and hopefully it will give people here ideas.