24 August 2024

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100 Tonson Foundation teamed up with living room for seed, Hajime Jyuku, and the SDG Lab by Thammasat & AIS, joining forces with artist Daisuke Nagaoka to create "The Sphere Boat", utilizing Thai Ram Pan mats and recycled materials.

Central to this collaboration was the SDG Lab by Thammasat & AIS, a pioneering initiative focused on promoting sustainable development across Asia. The lab serves as a hub for research, innovation, and practical solutions aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with key areas including climate, city development, and sustainable farming. Through its efforts, the SDG Lab contributes to a more sustainable and equitable future.

Daisuke Nagaoka's artistic project, "The Sphere House," offers a thought-provoking exploration of how living in a spherical house could fundamentally alter human society. By delving into both the practical and philosophical implications of such a radical concept, Nagaoka seeks to redefine our understanding of home, possession, and community. Challenging conventional notions of housing and society, "The Sphere House" presents a compelling vision of a future where everyday life is characterized by dynamism, interdependence, and a renewed connection to the natural world.

Building upon the concepts of "The Sphere House," Nagaoka developed "The Sphere Boat," a vessel designed to be lived in, floated, and paddled, crafted with Thai Ram Pan mats and recycled materials. These materials, sourced from one-time-use food plastic containers from convenience stores, underscore the project's commitment to sustainability by repurposing everyday waste into a functional and artistic creation. The Sphere Boat was brought to completion with the dedicated help of volunteers from the Thammasat team, who contributed their time and skills to ensure the project’s success. This project also engaged children from Hajime Jyuku, inviting them to participate in the creation process and experience the Sphere Boat firsthand.

The Sphere Boat is now available for everyone to experience and to try paddling at Puey Ungphakorn Centenary Hall and Park, Thammasat University Rangsit Campus.

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“The Sphere House”
Daisuke Nagaoka

“The Sphere House” is a project that involves building a spherical house, and examining modes of life in it. The ultimate aim of the project at large is to draw a line. As an artist who usually draws pictures, I began to wonder how I could possibly draw lines in a way that I have never done before. This project is what I arrived at in my pursuit of a method of drawing lines that express daily life itself, and the act of living. If the houses people live in were spherical, every movement of their residents would make them move as well. Every meal, every laugh, every fight and every roll-over in one’s sleep, would slowly rotate the entire house. The very act of living in a house would make it roll and leave a trace on the ground, and thereby draw a line onto the surface of the earth.

One thing that I understood at an early stage of the project was that human knowledge and perception are strongly biased. For a human society with spherical houses, “living” would be virtually synonymous with “moving.” This again would surely mean that the ideas of “possession” and “establishment” that we hold so dear take on different values. A house would be required to be mobile rather than decorative, and compactness would be preferable to expansiveness. In the event of an earthquake, tsunami or other natural disaster, people might be able to escape and take their houses with them. Versatile furniture and commodities would be appreciated, and terms like “comfortable” and “convenient” would be used to refer to different things than today. The concept of owning land would no longer exist, and social designs and economical systems, and ultimately, human thinking in general, would possibly change significantly from the modalities of the established society.

As all of these things come into play in this project, it isn’t done by simply building a spherical house. I consider it to be equally important to examine at once also a variety of technical matters in a society with spherical houses, such as agriculture, industry, food and communication. This would also mean to look at things that are not visible from a perspective that is defined by living in box-shaped houses. The “Zasso Kenkyujo” for example, which is part of the project, is dedicated to the observation of weeds (zasso). Once the basic living conditions for humans change, our perception of weeds shift from that of an “intruder” to a “cohabitor.” Furthermore, in order for multiple humans to live together on irregularly moving floors, they would need to be aware of each other’s presence, and continuously communicate in a non-verbal form. In this sense, a spherical house could be understood as a device that reinforces people’s sense of being alive.

Daisuke Nagaoka

Born 1973 in Yamagata, lives in Yokohama, Kanagawa. Completed a Master’s course at Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London, and is currently based in Yamagata and Yokohama. While continuing to focus on the connections between memory and the human body, he creates experimental drawings, videos, and other artworks that aim to capture the moment of creation. Launched the architectural drawing project “The Sphere House” in 2017, which he keeps expanding while examining a diverse range of aspects surrounding everyday life. He is currently a part-time lecturer at the graduate school of the Tohoku University of Art and Design.