Irreplaceable Value
The development of technology has brought significant progress to many aspects of architectural production. Each time, the very nature of architecture has been renewed—this is an undeniable fact when we look at history. It has long been said that the defining force of our era is the advancement of computer technology. Needless to say, its benefits have played a major role in the practical processes of design and construction. At the same time, its overwhelming computational power continues to reshape the way architects conceive architecture itself.
On the other hand, if we shift our focus to another aspect of this benefit, we see that information, once digitized, can be easily shared. As a result, architecture produced through such shared resources has begun to lose its specificity to place, tending toward uniformity. Architecture conceived through globally shared tools and references inevitably carries a certain resemblance, accelerating the production of commodified buildings. This, too, is a condition of our time.
Meanwhile, the relationship between architecture and the inherent specificity of land has become relatively attenuated. Deepening this relationship—between architecture and what cannot be translated into data—allows architecture to inscribe a value that exceeds its role as a replaceable, technology-oriented product. No matter how data formats evolve, a place cannot be fully read or perceived through data alone. This remains a privileged capacity of human sensibility.
In an age where “sharing” is a central keyword, if that which cannot be shared can acquire value, then before architecture—inseparable from its site—there may lie an unexplored and fertile horizon. Here, I would like to revisit the nature of architecture by focusing on the values that emerge through its relationship with land, returning to its origins and reconsidering it from a contemporary perspective.
Topography, Landscape, and Architecture
“Topography” refers to a condition of land grasped from a slightly distanced viewpoint. It is the total state formed by the layering of terrain—including artificial modifications—with natural environments and infrastructure. In this sense, topography includes landforms, vegetation, settlements, and circulation networks. At a more localized scale, it consists of elements such as undulations, plantings, buildings, and movement paths. These elements, combined across various scales upon the basis of terrain, give rise to the unique character of a place. Since ancient times, humans have lived by sensing and interpreting topography, finding ways to relate to their surroundings.
In contrast, “landscape” is the totality of elements as seen from a particular viewpoint. While topography is the place itself, landscape inherently contains a distance between the observer and the observed. It is therefore always objective. A friend of mine, an artist, once said something memorable: “You can see a landscape, but you can never enter it.” Perhaps this means the following: even if we move toward the landscape we see, what we arrive at is merely one of its constituent objects. The landscape itself always remains beyond reach, and another landscape unfolds from that new position.
Let us consider the temporal dimensions of topography and landscape. Topography is grounded in large-scale systems such as terrain and natural environments, which evolve on a planetary timescale far beyond human perception. Their changes are exceedingly slow. In particular, landforms evolve over tens of thousands of years. Although they continue to change, the pace is so gradual that it appears almost static to us—imperceptible even over a lifetime.
Landscape, by contrast, is composed largely of elements close to our daily lives—buildings, animals, plants—and shifts in response to social and economic conditions. In urban areas, where human activity predominates, these changes are especially pronounced. Within a decade, our lifestyles and values can transform significantly. Yet such changes often go unnoticed or are quickly forgotten. When we look back at photographs from ten or twenty years ago, we not only see changes in the cityscape but also perceive the design of everyday objects as “retro.” Fifty years ago, during Japan’s period of rapid economic growth, or a century ago when more than half of the population was engaged in primary industries, the landscape of the same place would feel almost unrecognizable.
Both topography and landscape are in constant flux. Yet when we consider their relative speeds of change, landscape is far more transient—and far more easily forgotten.
If architecture can strongly bind itself to what is difficult to move or alter within a place, it becomes a site-specific value. Such value cannot be shared through photographs or videos; it can only be experienced there. To establish this bond, architecture must return to its origins and engage directly with the land. We must reinterpret the land and reconsider the direct, active relationship between architecture and site. In this sense, exploring the relationship between architecture and topography is also a pursuit of the possibilities of architecture in our time.
Sharing that Continues to Allow Discovery
Can architecture itself form topography? Today, the conditions typically required of architecture—function, efficiency, program—are, as mentioned earlier, highly mutable and reflective of contemporary values. If we seek architecture that is strongly connected to the relatively stable nature of topography, it may be better not to base it on elements that change rapidly.
In other words, by stripping architecture of its temporal attributes and reducing it to a physical, micro-scale terrain, it may be understood in the same terms as land itself and become part of topography. If architecture can intervene in terrain, it can emphasize, soften, or transform the characteristics of a place, generating various relationships.
Paradoxically, the primordial condition of architecture may be this: first, there is a place. Then, interpretations shaped by each era are layered onto it, from which functions and uses emerge. Such architecture may continue to allow new discoveries over time. In doing so, both topography and architecture come to embody landscape—the expression of each era.
Architecture connected to topography becomes shared as part of it. Indirectly, it may even be shared with an unspecified multitude—people, animals, plants. In this condition, architecture acquires a form of publicness that exceeds conventional notions of ownership and sharing.
Publicness is generally understood as something open and shared among many in a given time. Yet when architecture is opened to time, it can be shared across generations, treated as a kind of common heritage. A mountain, for example, may serve as a site of spiritual practice in one era, a lookout point in another, and a place for tourism and leisure in yet another—continuously reinterpreted while remaining the same mountain. In what is often called the environmental age, such temporally extended publicness becomes increasingly important, as endless consumption reaches its limits.
Making Terrain Manifest
When architecture is conceived as part of terrain, what kind of relationship emerges between the two? One approach is to turn architecture into terrain; another is to transform terrain into architecture. An example of the former can be found in the village of Innerdalen in Sundalsøra, Norway, where green roofs make buildings appear as if they are simply a continuation of the meadow. An example of the latter is the rock-shelter dwellings in Les Eyzies, in the Dordogne region of southern France, where the spatial qualities of the rock itself form part of the architecture. Both exist as forms of architecture without architects.
There is also a third approach: interpreting terrain itself as architecture—such as naturally formed caves. In all these cases, what matters is not the difference in approach, but the fact that the individuality and force of terrain give rise to architecture in its most primordial form.
Here, I would like to introduce two projects on the summit of Yashima in Takamatsu, Kagawa, begun in 2016, as attempts to connect terrain and architecture.
Yashima, once literally an island, is characterized by its mesa topography—a plateau formed by eroded andesite lava. Since ancient times, it has served as a site of religious and strategic importance. It was designated a historic and natural monument in 1934, and also became part of Japan’s first national park, Setonaikai National Park. In the 1970s, it attracted as many as 2.5 million visitors annually. Today, due to changing social and economic conditions, the number has declined to around 400,000, and the area is undergoing a transformation in search of a new identity.
At the Yashima Summit Exchange Facility, we attempted to construct architecture as if it were terrain. The site sits at the western edge of the summit, adjacent to a viewpoint overlooking the Seto Inland Sea and Takamatsu city, with protected forests to the north and south, and a temple and aquarium to the east. The site once contained a now-ruined hotel, with a level difference of about three meters.
Given the site’s protected status, new construction is generally restricted, and existing structures are typically preserved. This project, however, was permitted as an exceptional case to redefine Yashima’s role.
The aim was to reveal the latent qualities of the site from a contemporary perspective and maximize its potential. Rather than imposing conventional functions, we listened carefully to what the site suggested. We read the vast landscape to the west, the surrounding forest, and the enduring topography of the Seto Inland Sea. In response, the building was shaped as a gently meandering structure that creates multiple plazas around it.
The result is a large, loop-like architecture with a maximum level difference of 6.6 meters—a continuous assemblage of architecture and open spaces forming a single place. In some areas, it merges with adjacent plazas; in others, it maintains distance through a low roof that nearly touches the ground; elsewhere, it is embedded within trees or elevated to secure views. Each condition draws out the characteristics of the site, while all are connected as a continuous band.
To achieve such continuity with terrain, a strong technical foundation is required. The architecture takes on variable forms, requiring three-dimensional verification and the data processing of tens of thousands of unique components. Today, such processes are readily handled by computational tools. Fabrication, too, poses little challenge for machines when each component is digitally defined. However, in construction processes that cannot be automated, human labor must achieve machine-like precision, assembling each part exactly as specified in digital models. Not without difficulty, this project revealed how human hesitation can sometimes unconsciously resist the momentum of technology.
Freedom from Temporality
If two places, formed through different processes, can be experienced as a unified whole, then architecture may transcend the boundaries of individual sites and intervene in a broader topography. In such a condition, architecture exists as part of terrain, as part of an environment—it is connected to topography.
If this connection is achieved, whether the method is new construction or renovation becomes secondary. First, a place is formed through architectural intervention; only afterward are its uses determined. Perhaps this is what it means to cultivate topography.
By approaching architecture as part of terrain, we may find that architecture becomes a place—freed from temporality. Yet this does not mean distancing itself from the present. Rather, by continually reinterpreting its relationship with each era, architecture can engage more deeply with time.
If architecture can connect not only to terrain but also to other site-specific dimensions such as culture and history, it may acquire a form of publicness that transcends time, and with it, a truly singular value.
As technology advances, the ways in which we experience architecture—from painting to photography, from video to digital space—continue to evolve. Perhaps one day, even digital space may no longer be necessary. As our perception expands alongside technology, what will constitute a “real” place? And how will we understand architecture then?
Will architecture become even more primordial, or will things we have never considered architecture come to be understood as such?
Imagining this expansion of perception, it is difficult not to feel a sense of anticipation.
（Originally published in Shinkenchiku-sha, September 2022 issue）