Kioi SeidŠ– The Architecture of Education: A Building that Teaches Without Teaching

Cristina Fey ()
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Cristina Fey: Community College Philadelphia & Cambridge Center West Japan

Enformation Conference Proceedings Series, 2025, vol. 16, 218-237

Abstract: Education has never belonged solely to classrooms. Architecture, as one of society’s most pervasive yet overlooked teachers, silently shapes behavior, values, and perception through space, light, and material. This paper examines Hiroshi NaitŠ’s Kioi SeidŠ(2022, Tokyo) as an architectural pedagogy -- a building designed “without purpose†that resists the dominance of utility, productivity, and profit. Through its spatial sequence—from dark, compressed entry to luminous atrium—Kioi SeidŠdramatizes education as transformation: a journey from disorientation to insight. Drawing connections to Dewey, Freire, and Montessori, the project exemplifies how architecture can embody problem-posing pedagogy, cultivate reflection, and position environments as active teachers. It also resonates with Japan’s cultural lineage of Shinto shrines, Zen gardens, and tea houses, which educate through atmosphere and ritual rather than instruction. At the same time, its refusal of fixed function raises ethical debates about privilege, responsibility, and sustainability in a city of scarcity. By situating Kioi SeidŠalongside global precedents such as Ronchamp, the Salk Institute, and the Vittra Telefonplan School, this paper argues that the building is neither sanctuary, nor school, nor monument, but a deliberate anomaly - an architecture of ambiguity. In doing so, it reminds us that built environments are never neutral: they teach discipline, consumption, control, or, in this rare case, openness, humility, and interpretive freedom. Kioi SeidŠdemonstrates that architecture itself can be a form of pedagogy, expanding education beyond curricula into the spaces of everyday life.

Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:enf:proc25:art15:v:16

DOI: 10.63467/alls16.art15

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