The PechaKucha Trilogy - Part 1 & 2

1 Nov 2005 Category: Architecture, Events & Exhibitions, Features, Japan, Worldwide

What does one think of when they hear “PechaKucha”? As an English gentleman my first instinct would be to say “bless you”, followed by a discreet step backwards so as to not catch any germs. However to the design community of Tokyo - and now London - Pechakucha has many other different meanings. PechaKucha is fun. PechaKucha is sharing. PechaKucha is inspiration. PechaKucha is a phenomenon making waves across the world leaving everyone thinking “why didn’t I think of that?” in it’s wake.

Intro and Vol.27 report by Jon

It’s hard to describe exactly what PechaKucha is without resorting to waffly metaphors (like above) but the basic premise of the now infamous, once-a-month PechaKucha Night is that you can present to a room of people your work, thoughts, fantasies, photos or ANYTHING, as long as it is related in some way to “design”. The catch? You have to do this using only 20 slides and each slide will be displayed for just 20 seconds. This has made PechaKucha Night into a platform where presenters cannot afford to waste time, showing only their best work or images that they find most inspirational, and squeezing their accompanying narration down to it’s most essential elements.

PechaKucha Night was created by Tokyo’s own Klein Dytham architects and has been a monthly feature at the SuperDeluxe club in Nishi Azabu, Tokyo for over 2 years. Recently, PechaKucha Night has invaded the design community of London and has been enjoying an immensely positive reaction, with over 400 people on the waiting list to attend PechaKucha Night Vol.03 being held at the ICA.

By a mysterious quirk of fate there happen to be THREE PechaKucha Nights this month, all within a space of 6 days. For a once-a-month event, that’s not…normal.

So why has this happened?

Last Wednesday in Tokyo was PechaKucha Night Vol.27. On the same day on the other side of the planet, PechaKucha Night Vol.03 took place in London. And LAST NIGHT, Tokyo was treated to an extra-special PechaKucha Night to celebrate the start of Tokyo Designer’s Week with special guest presentations from British design heavyweights Sebastian Conran and Thomas Heatherwick.

Since PingMag is so great and because we love the energy and originality that every PechaKucha Night brings, we are proud to present you with 3 reports on this once-in-a-blue-moon PechaKucha Trilogy!

Vol.27 was a signature PechaKucha mix of various presentation styles. There was straightforward slideshows, mini 20-second video clips, soapbox-style barking of individual design philosophies, students showcasing their work, slightly drunk people, completely sober people, loud people and quiet people. Here are some of the highlights of Vol.27:

Firstly we have to mention Todo Takanao, a London-trained young Japanese architecture graduate looking for an internship. He was full of energy and his presentation was intentionally very flustered - an instant hit with the audience. He showed us one of his student projects which was a kind of public space suitable for creating a gallery or a meeting area. The entire structure was circular, constructed with hundreds of thin vertically-placed prisms. Why? Well, Todo says that they are placed in such a way so that even though the prisms are see-through, you cannot actually see what is inside the circular structure because of the way the light refracts. It was an impressive display of the understanding of ray optics and Todo had even made a computer-generated animated 3D walkthrough to help explain his ideas - great work.

Next from the highlights we have Jan Tanaka, who had recently moved to Tokyo from Denmark. He showed us some past projects which revolved around a theme of using space more efficiently. For example a waterfront office building that ensured every office unit would have a waterfront view - not just the side facing the waterfront - by applying a clever “concertina” effect to the shape instead of simply making it a rectangle.

Fellow Brit Crispin Jones entertained us next, with his humorous video clips (20 seconds each!) showing what he calls “the watch as a form of social commentary”. Amongst the examples he gave was a watch that was supposed to inject a bit of humility into our lives (by constantly displaying a message that reads “Remember You Will Die” instead of the actual time), and a watch that projects your status to people you are interacting with, by using a built-in lie-detector to display a bright red message reading “LIES”, whenever you lie, which is clearly visible to everyone around you. To watch these videos you can visit Crispin’s website.

Finally I think it’s safe to say the entire audience absolutely loved the presentation by two representatives from consulting agency GDR, whose job it is to find the freshest design from all over the world and present it to big corporations for research purposes or so that they can find the right agencies to work with. Lucy Johnston and Katelyn Fraser machine-gunned their way through 20 slides, taking turns to narrate and signalling the end of another 20 second interval with a curt “ok shut up, my turn now!”. Amongst the work shown was Emporio Peroni’s shop display for their new beer, which took the form of a shop you couldn’t even enter (protected by a big Italian security guard) and simply displayed a bottle of the beer on a pedestal, in the center of the floor. Very bold. I also liked the limited edition Paul Smith-designed HP Sauce bottles (HP Sauce is like…brown ketchup) of which apparently Paul Smith staff bought the entire limited run, before the public could get their hands on them! Great stuff and a hilarious presentation.

London’s third PechaKucha Night was yet another delicious cocktail spiced with a selection of special ingredients including a fairly wobbly moderator, who - in an attempt to fight his flu - accidentally swallowed a sleeping pill and since then was trapped in some sort of a time loop.

London Vol.03 report by Mazen Touma

The 13 presentations were not only different in theme but also in how they went about using this platform as a promotional event. Take Damian Barr & Rowan Pelling for a start, performing with a wonderful jam over the term of “blithe” and its omnipresent relevance, for instance the desire to have sex after an terror attack.

We were delighted by the easiness of Michael Johnson’s talk about “Zag-Zig thinking”. John Nordon (IDE- Architecture) used his stage appearance to express the urgent need for public spaces (in particular playgrounds) in a most heart-warming and unfiltered conjunction with his kids who starred on most of the slides.

Matt Smith & Ed Robinson (The Viral Factory) made the start this evening and set the amusement-benchmark quite high. It was not completely clear if the audience followed the super-speed word flow of the presenters about on-demand-culture as a reaction to the new and constantly improving medium internet or if the focus was lying on their highly infectious images which spoke for themselves. In any case, the two harvested a considerable amount of laughter.

After these first 400 seconds of light entertainment, Deborah Saunt (DSDHA) managed to chill the atmosphere down with a serious lecture about “edge spaces”, raising valid questions on how to determine whether a bench is a bench or a dressing room. The audience certainly liked the semi-transparent poly-carbonate cladding on the façade of their Kindergarten and every present architect silently agreed and enjoyed the rather nasty comment about the market leading competitors in London like Fosters and Partners.

They were followed by Roger Ridsdill-Smith, a director of the most adventurous engineers office Arup. Roger used the analyses of football and its American derivate with all the special gear and complex rules to illustrate the mechanism that he calls “inevitable design”. With some statistics and a little bit of humour Roger was able to prove that a time is near in which England will finally stop building houses out of bricks! Joy and relief amongst the present architects.

A completely different flavour was added through Patrik Fredrikson’s and Ian Stallard’s (FredriksonStallard) confession about their obsession with darkness and simplicity. They introduced the category of lying materials, e.g. the fluffy temptation of pink or yellow insulation, which despite its appearance is harmful if touched or breathed in. With a pinch of irony they suggested that their design for a rug cast symmetrically out of two blood-like viscous liquids represents their understanding of a romantic idea.

Moritz Waldemeyer is committed to deliver not only aesthetically appealing but also useful items. Spotted at this year’s Milan Design Week was his spiraling chandelier made out of thousands of Swarovski crystals that can display text messages sent to it from a mobile phone. He is also responsible for the installation of a loudspeaker mounted to a post somewhere in Shoreditch to which text messages can be send too, so that they are electronically spoken out. Not the most important invention, one could argue, but still I believe the world would be a sadder place without it. Or not?

The first set was completed with the presentation of thoughtful art and literature projects by Parayam Sharifi. He entertained the audience with badges that he distributed at the Cannes film festival 2002, with slogans like “I was raped by Polanski” as well as offering convincing criticism about globalisation.

Striking in the second half was the sociologically driven presentation of Nipa Doshi (from Doshi Levien) who used the slides purely as a neutral clockwork to summarise her impressions about her last trip to India. Instead of showing the Doshi Levien design oeuvre, ranging from a transparent Doctor’s bag to cutlery designed for Habitat, she described the disturbing lack of design identity in her motherland. She convincingly pointed out that the richness of the colourful juxtaposition in India’s everyday life gets ruled out by imports from the western hemisphere. Her last slide with the number 0000020 made clear that a lot more could be said about this dilemma.

In comparison Ron Arad seemed to be a little bit lost while presenting his hotel design for the Battersea Power station on the south bank of the Thames. This might be due to the latest news that this project with its luxurious apartments, the vertical lift shuttle and the invisible circulation route for servants is never going to be realised. Oh no!

After the event and it was quite pleasant to see the speakers clustering with a bottle of sponsored beer in their hands in completely unpredictable constellations. Roger from Arup was having a chat with the guys from the viral factory and my silly question if I am witnessing a life act of networking was laughed at due to the lack of likeliness, that one could be the future client of the other. It rather became clear that most of the presenters came tonight to have a little bit of an adrenaline-kick and to express what they are doing to others who are probably surfing on a similar wave.

1 Comment

1. bless you!

   Posted by: tom on November 1st, 2005 at 5:07 pm

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