Only learn internship life - take you into a well-known firm.
hello！Welcome to the Weixue Internship Life Series Here, the seniors of the Weixue family will tell you about their interesting experiences in the internship process. You can find all the wonderful stories you want to know about the world-renowned master design firm, the working environment and life of the interns, and the wonderful stories you talked with your friends during the period. Without further ado, let's have a ** after all.
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kia
Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Hannover in Leibniz, Germany, Master of Architecture from Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, and went to Tokyo Institute of Technology for exchange. He has practiced in architectural design firms such as Shigeru Ban, Junya Ishigami in Tokyo, Barking Studio, and David Chipperfield in Shanghai. To learn more about the author's educational experience, please click hereIn Germany, in Sweden, in Japan, I grew up for those years
Junya Ishigami, a Japanese architect who graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, established his own practice in 2004 after working at Sanaa for four years. Jun Ishigami crosses the border between art and architecture, and his works bring the slenderness and lightness to the extreme, existing and even disappearing into nature in an alternative way. Representative works include the Japan Pavilion at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, the 2019 Serpentine Gallery in London, and the Kanagawa Institute of Technology KAT Workshop.
1.Working environmentJunya Ishigami's office is located in Roppongi, one of the busiest areas in Tokyo. But thick with the surroundingsUnlike the heavy business atmosphere, the office is located in the basement of a modest office building. On the first day of reporting, I really didn't find it. Entering from the main entrance of the office building, looking back and forth on the index wall in the front hall, I just couldn't find Junya Ishigami's name. Seeing that I was going to be late (I later found out that the work time was not very strict), I temporarily caught a Japanese to help me call a ** question. Ah, I think I'm supposed to go down. From the next day, I learned that the entrance to the office was not from the entrance of the office building, but from the fire staircase next to it. 
Exterior view of the studio Intern colleague Giulia TosarelloIt is said that the predecessor of the office was oneA nightclub, so the whole office is windowlessTo be honest, time does fly quite quickly. The daily office area is the first basement, but there are also two basement floors and three basement floors, and each floor is much smaller than the previous floor. The second basement floor is where the foam cutter is located, and all around it are filled with various study models. The third basement floor will store some models and sundries, which is very crowdedIt was so crowded that I didn't even know there were three basement floors for the third month I was there.
The stone office is not large, but it is clearly planned. There is a particularly spacious and bright area, with a large solid wood table, surrounded by one-person-high bookshelves, which is the office of Ishigami himself. Next to it are neat rows of desks, each stacked with books and stationery, which is the office area for employees. The rest of the interns will have to squeeze in models of various scales, and even be overwhelmed by large-scale models. 
Serious work kia When I interned there, there were about twenty-four or five employees, almost one-third Japanese, one-third Chinese, and one-third people from other countries, mostly from Europe and the United States. There is a strong diversity in the company's affairsFrom commissions to competitions, from architectural projects to interior projects, from publications to exhibitions, you can reach it whenever you want. 2.Office cultureExcept for Ishigami himself, the others in the office are basically between 20 and 30 years old, and there is no clear relationship between superiors and subordinates, and the proportion of interns is very large. There is no age difference, so the relationship is very good. It's not uncommon to have lunch and dinner together at work, drink alcohol from a convenience store across the road on the platform of a nearby pet store after work, and go to a bundi or a town around Tokyo on weekends. 
Studio Dinner At the end of the year, like all other Japanese companies, the office is thoroughly cleaned and the models that have been photographed and archived are shredded. Ishigami will also hold a year-end party, and invite everyone to drink and chat in the tavern in Minami Aoyama**. So, although the work is very hard, every intern I know is nostalgic for this place that I hated at first when they leave, and even get drunk and hug and cry. 3.Everyday lifeIt is often said that overtime in Japanese offices is crazy. Sometimes I agree with it, sometimes I disagree. It is agreed that the general working hours in the office are on the long side. What I don't agree with is that the work contract is very clear that from Monday to Saturday, from 10 am to 11 pm, so overtime is rare. Because I'm the kind of person who can plan my spare time, I'm more resistant to temporary requests for me to stay and work overtimeIt's better to be open and honest with me, "We work long hours." 
The self-made windows on the walls of my studio show the day-to-day work of KIA interns around the world and the projects they work on. In 19, Junya Ishikami's "Free Architecture" solo exhibition at PSA (Power Station of Art) was also handmade and sent by interns in Tokyo. GA Gallery's magazine also regularly submits a large number of hand-drawn manuscripts. In the project stage, there are more than n various proposals per week, and each plan must be accompanied by a solid model and floor plan. In the construction stage of the project, it is also necessary to cooperate with the 1:2 or 1:1 model to see the effect, which can be involved. The scope of work is beyond the reach of many companies that "focus" on construction. 
2019 London Serpentine Gallery model kia4.Working modeAs for the office culture, compared to the high-speed project process in China, it can be said that there is a utopia. For many domestic firms and companies, six months from the project to SD 100% is not fast. But on the stone side, there is no specific time node for the scheme design。There is only one reason that can prompt the crossing of time, and that is that Ishigami himself is satisfied.
Often, the planning phase of a commissioned project lasts one to two years, with a new round of proposals at intervals. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the completed project on the stone is really "one in a hundred", or even one in a thousand. But it isSuch a design environment creates an extremely simple environment for architects, all for design. 
Me and my buddy kia5.Internship programOne of the most impressive projects I did at that time was the Forest Kindergarten in Rizhao, Shandong Province. The undulating terrain that seems to have no regularity at all is really not much regular. Therefore, the design modification relies heavily on a large proportion of the solid model. The model is largeTo people are really able to hang out inside. In this way, the stone will really walk in it, feel the slope on this side, the light on that sideShadow. Therefore, each modification means that the extremely large scale solid model has to be restarted. 
Large-scale mock-up of KIA's Second Moment of Collapse is an exhibition at Toto Gallery in Tokyo, which features not only drawings, but also two extremely large handmade modelsIt has been redone countless times, painted, sanded, and planted. When the model is actually placed in the exhibition hall, it is enough to shock. What struck me even more was that there were many other Japanese architects in the exhibition, such as Sou Fujimoto and Kengo Kuma, and only the models on the stone were handmade. 
Scrap Tree Model Kia6.Benefits of Interns:If I talk about the tangible benefits, I can recall that I had the opportunity to see the project with my own eyes. But I wasn't there for the project team, so I didn't go. However, there are other hidden benefits that I am deeply aware of.
First, the colleagues I work with are from good universitiesThere are also RISD, ETH, PRATT and the likes of the gatekeeper. Coupled with a very free design environment, you can discuss a lot of interesting content.
Second, the more times the plan is killed, the mentality will really get better。As I said before, the version of each project is selected from a hundred. So if you don't pick yourself, then continue to work hard in the next round. Well, there are always new solutions.
Mizuiwa scheme model Kia now thinks back to the six months in Junya Ishigami's office, and she can't help but talk a lot, about the interesting things that happened, and about the nights she stayed up. Even when I think about it, I'm happy. In a word, it can be summed up,What Shi Shang wants is actually very simple, what he wants to break through, ambiguous, and extreme, not ambiguous at all. I also hope that every student on the road of construction will have the courage not to give up without ambiguity!
Junya Ishigami's cute signature kia architectural design