2025
LOOKING, AFTER THE FIRES
OSAKA, JAPAN
Designed in collaboration with T. Teshima Architect & Associates
EXPO 2025 USA Pavilion, Osaka, Japan
April 13, 2025 - October 13, 2025
MacArthur House of the US Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
March 2026 - present
Commissioned by the US-Japan Creative Artists Fellowship Program from the Japan-US Friendship Commission & National Endowment for the Arts.
https://lookingafterthefires.com/
“Looking, After the Fires“ is an ongoing speculative project undertaken through a Rome Prize Fellowship in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome and a Creative Artists Fellowship from the Japan-US Friendship Commission in 2025.
Even as unprecedented wildfires ravage the California landscape, small moments of optimism can be found in elemental ecological reflexes. Biological processes leverage fire towards rapid, opportunistic endeavors of regrowth in pursuit of a new vision of ecological succession. These fires have motivated similar bursts of creative response from human cultural networks as well, inspiring – perhaps necessitating – new ways to conceive of ourselves in relation to our landscapes.
Drawing from conversations across disciplines in California, Italy, and Japan, we have analyzed depictions of post-wildfire landscapes, searching for ways in which these events provoke new representations of human relationships to the built environment. The first product of this work is a reinterpretation of vernacular fire towers of the United States and Japan, commissioned for the US Pavilion at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, Japan, and now on display at the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. It is a memorial to that which was lost, and a vantage point from which to watch the spectacular processes of regeneration of our ecosystems. The firetower was designed for repeated deployments, constructed from sustainably harvested clear hinoki wood, and assembled without metal fasteners. It is only by making it possible to imagine continued habitation after the fires that it becomes possible to live with fire.
Project Sponsors:
Dowbuilt
Yamacho
Takeuchi Komuten Construction Company
Kyoei Lumber
Planet Japan
Fujimaki Kougyou Co., Ltd.
Project Credits:
Architecture Project Team: SAW // Spiegel Aihara Workshop & T. Teshima Architect & Associates
(SAW project team: Megumi Aihara, Dan Spiegel & Shinji Miyajima)
[T. Teshima Architect & Associates project team: Tamotsu Teshima, Shotaro Oshima, Shun Endo & Ken Kamachi]
Fire Tower Fabrication: Ryuhei Ueda, Junichi Umemoto, Gengo Kashiyama, Koichi Komori, Takeshi Saito, Takashi Sakohira, Shinji Nagai, Kazuo Hashimoto, Makoto Hisaki, Matsuri Matsui & Hidekazu Matsuda
Bell Fabrication: Minoru Yamada, Ko Matsuki
Contributors: Yoshiyuki Yamana, Choji Enomoto, Akira Takeuchi, Kenji Nishishita, Bumpei Nishishita, Kazuma Hirao & Ryoji Fujimaki
International House of Japan (I-House)
Photography: Tomoyuki Kusunose
EXPO 2025 USA Pavilion, Osaka, Japan
April 13, 2025 - October 13, 2025
MacArthur House of the US Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
March 2026 - present
Commissioned by the US-Japan Creative Artists Fellowship Program from the Japan-US Friendship Commission & National Endowment for the Arts.
https://lookingafterthefires.com/
“Looking, After the Fires“ is an ongoing speculative project undertaken through a Rome Prize Fellowship in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome and a Creative Artists Fellowship from the Japan-US Friendship Commission in 2025.
Even as unprecedented wildfires ravage the California landscape, small moments of optimism can be found in elemental ecological reflexes. Biological processes leverage fire towards rapid, opportunistic endeavors of regrowth in pursuit of a new vision of ecological succession. These fires have motivated similar bursts of creative response from human cultural networks as well, inspiring – perhaps necessitating – new ways to conceive of ourselves in relation to our landscapes.
Drawing from conversations across disciplines in California, Italy, and Japan, we have analyzed depictions of post-wildfire landscapes, searching for ways in which these events provoke new representations of human relationships to the built environment. The first product of this work is a reinterpretation of vernacular fire towers of the United States and Japan, commissioned for the US Pavilion at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, Japan, and now on display at the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. It is a memorial to that which was lost, and a vantage point from which to watch the spectacular processes of regeneration of our ecosystems. The firetower was designed for repeated deployments, constructed from sustainably harvested clear hinoki wood, and assembled without metal fasteners. It is only by making it possible to imagine continued habitation after the fires that it becomes possible to live with fire.
Project Sponsors:
Dowbuilt
Yamacho
Takeuchi Komuten Construction Company
Kyoei Lumber
Planet Japan
Fujimaki Kougyou Co., Ltd.
Project Credits:
Architecture Project Team: SAW // Spiegel Aihara Workshop & T. Teshima Architect & Associates
(SAW project team: Megumi Aihara, Dan Spiegel & Shinji Miyajima)
[T. Teshima Architect & Associates project team: Tamotsu Teshima, Shotaro Oshima, Shun Endo & Ken Kamachi]
Fire Tower Fabrication: Ryuhei Ueda, Junichi Umemoto, Gengo Kashiyama, Koichi Komori, Takeshi Saito, Takashi Sakohira, Shinji Nagai, Kazuo Hashimoto, Makoto Hisaki, Matsuri Matsui & Hidekazu Matsuda
Bell Fabrication: Minoru Yamada, Ko Matsuki
Contributors: Yoshiyuki Yamana, Choji Enomoto, Akira Takeuchi, Kenji Nishishita, Bumpei Nishishita, Kazuma Hirao & Ryoji Fujimaki
International House of Japan (I-House)
Photography: Tomoyuki Kusunose
