KiKi ARCHi

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KiKi ARCHi

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(“Text as submitted by Architect”)

Yoshihiko Seki

Yoshihiko Seki was born in Kanagawa, Japan. After graduating from Shibaura Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in architecture, he worked for Studio Bednarski in London and Kengo Kuma & Associates in Tokyo and has been a lecturer at Toyo University in Tokyo. He founded KiKi ARCHi in 2013. Due to his multi-cultural life experience in Kanagawa, Tokyo, London, Beijing, and Shanghai, his thinking path is constantly broadened, and his observations and opinions on matters gradually deepen. His insights are interpreted and conveyed in different kinds of design practices.

Yoshihiko Seki’s unique narrative perspective is vaguely reflected behind chance and imagination. He is good at discovering details and can seek the origin of every architectural context, taking emotional capture and logical combination as the extension of the origin, refining the conceptual tone that conforms to the characteristics of the object, and giving the design a new rhythm sequence and space power. This concept is reflected in his representative work Mogao Art school, Anna Garden, House in White, Doma House, Light Echo: TW Showroom, Sorairo Wagashi Store, and other projects, which is a specific expression of his response to the spirit of the times.

Saika Akiyoshi

Saika Akiyoshi was born in Nagasaki, Japan. After graduating from Shibaura Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in architecture, she worked for HIDETO HORIIKE+URTOPIA and Office Hiyoshizaka in Tokyo and founded KiKi ARCHi in 2013. She grew up and was educated in the United States and Japan, bringing her different cultures and ideologies. Meanwhile, the combination of these experiences has shaped her open-minded personality. She often looks at things from the perspective of a ‘bystander.’ In addition, the appropriate ‘sense of distance’ helps her deal with works more rationally and objectively and find the fine distinction to obtain design inspiration.

Saika Akiyoshi stresses the importance of analysis and perception of design and attaches importance to the design process’s instant feelings and creative emotions. In her view, the tangible reality is better than simple vision. Therefore, she is used to building space with the help of manual models and sorting out the scale relations among people, architecture, and nature. In this process of discovery and renewal, she combines project requirements and characteristics and the client’s feedback to achieve the ultimate balance of construction. In addition, she focuses on creating a sense of sensual experience and continuity by organizing the density of space, weakening the boundaries of different scenes, and presenting a balanced, comfortable, and smooth design. In addition to architecture, her working concept and thinking are constantly expressed in a broader and more diversified field.

Practice Ideology 

KiKi ARCHi, founded by Japanese architects Yoshihiko Seki and Saika Akiyoshi in 2013, is an open and inclusive international team. It has set up offices in Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai. ‘KiKi,’ it’s pronunciation and interpretation in Japanese, is a sense of appreciating things, which means mastery, attainments, and unique opinions of things in various fields. The lyric and logic of KiKi ARCHi’s creation combine external perceptual experience with its knowledge system, internalizes it into a harmonious but different humanistic idea, and then extends to the virtual and real dimensions of space such as spirit, form, structure, and texture.

KiKi ARCHi has an inclusive heart for the independence and integration of different cultures and individuals. The team is good at discovering the characteristics of objects, focusing on various image associations, making subtle observations, transforming the rational framework into spatial logic, and completing the specific narrative of the project with graceful design language. Weakening words and forms, rich value expression is implied under the simple and pure vision.

KiKi ARCHi’s design practices cover many countries and cities, ranging from architecture, interior, gardening, installation, and new media art, such as cultural and public welfare projects: Quanzhou Contemporary Art Museum, Mogao Art school, Dao Temple; installation and new media art: ‘QUAD,’ an installation in Boston, ‘Magma: impromptu Music Novel’ at music live in Lake Kinrin, Oita; residential projects: Anna Garden, House in White, Doma House; office, showroom and retail projects: Tiantong Law Office, Light Echo: TW Showroom, EMPEROR Concept Silk Store, Sorairo Wagashi Store.

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