AIA Japan

AIA International Conference 2025 Sri Lanka: Art Within Architecture
2025-10-09 - 2025-10-11 | Tokyo
AIA International Conference 2025 Sri Lanka – The Art within Architecture
When: Thursday 9 October – Saturday 11 October 2025 (Extension tours: 8 October & 12 October onwards)
Where: Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Registration: Eventbrite
For more information see the AIA International website, HERE

UPDATE: Sri Lankan AIA Members and Friends can now register for discounted tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1491361685949/?discount=SLmember. You will then receive an invoice to send payment in LKR.
NB: your registration will only be complete once payment is received.
Further details can be found on our Eventbrite. If you have queries about these discounted tickets, please contact aiainternationconference@gmail.com.
Event Description
Step into a world where creativity meets legacy at the AIA International Conference 2025, set against the breathtaking backdrop of Sri Lanka—the Pearl of the Indian Ocean.
From the ancient grandeur of Sigiriya Rock Fortress to the refined simplicity of Geoffrey Bawa’s tropical modernism, Sri Lanka showcases centuries of architectural brilliance. With eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites and a rich landscape teeming with wildlife, the island is a haven for architecture enthusiasts and cultural explorers alike.
Join eminent architects, thought leaders, and peers from around the world gathering in Colombo from 9 to 11 October to explore the theme: ‘The Art Within Architecture’.
Beyond the conference hall, you will set out on specially curated architectural tours to discover some of Colombo’s highlights; you will also have the opportunity to venture further afield from 12 October onwards to encounter the architectural wonders and scenic splendour of Sri Lanka.

2025 AIA Japan Board Meeting
2025-10-30 19:00 - 20:30 (Asia/Tokyo) | Kengo Kuma & Associates, Aoyama Tower2 Chome-24-15 Minamiaoyama, Minato City, Tokyo, 107-0062, Japan
Location:
Kengo Kuma & Associates Offices
Aoyama Tower 16th Floor
2 Chome-24-15 Minamiaoyama, Minato City, Tokyo 107-0062

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85206464167?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 852 0646 4167
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Time: October 30 07:00 Osaka, Sapporo, Tokyo
Description:
AIA Japan board members will gather at the upcoming board meeting to discuss key organizational matters, leadership and committee updates, strategic planning, and planning for upcoming events. This is a great opportunity for all members to engage in decision-making to help shape the future direction of AIA Japan. Agenda will be released prior to meeting. This meeting will be held in person with an option to attend virtually via zoom.

Evening Lecture with Kengo Kuma: Back to Nature
2025-11-06 19:00 - 20:50 | Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan, 2 Chome-31-3 Nishiikebukuro, Toshima City, 東京都, 171-0021, Japan
AIA Japan is honored to collaborate with Kengo Kuma & Associates to present a special lecture, “Back to Nature,” by Kengo Kuma, one of Japan’s most internationally acclaimed architects. Held at the historic Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan—a masterpiece by Frank Lloyd Wright and a fitting setting for this dialogue between architecture and nature—the event will explore Kuma’s philosophy of reconnecting design with the natural world.
Schedule
6:30pm – Doors open.
If you arrive early, feel free to visit the exhibition hall (to the right), but please refrain from wandering elsewhere as requested by the venue staff. No open containers or outside food a drink please.
7:00pm – Lecture begins promptly.
Please arrive at least 10 minutes early to get seated. This is an intimate venue, and late arrivals may disrupt the presentation.
8:00pm – Brief Q&A
8:15pm – Post-lecture reception in the Dining Hall.
Join us upstairs for a relaxed evening of wine, tea, and small sweets, surrounded by the warm architecture of Wright’s wooden interiors—a perfect chance to connect with fellow guests and continue the conversation.
8:50pm – Event concludes.
Register Via Peatix: here
FREE FOR AIA JAPAN MEMBERS!
3000JPY for non-members. Non-member tickets will be available for purchase starting at 9:00am Sunday 10/26.
STUDENTS! Use Discount Code: AIAJSTUDENT2025
No CES credits will be awarded at this lecture.
Online Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82723845751?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 827 2384 5751
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Biography:
Kengo Kuma was born in 1954. He established Kengo Kuma & Associates in 1990. He is currently a University Professor and Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo and a member of the Japan Art Academy after teaching at Keio University and the University of Tokyo. KKAA projects are currently underway in more than 50 countries. Kengo Kuma proposes architecture that opens up new relationships between nature, technology, and human beings. His major publications include Kengo Kuma Onomatopoeia Architecture Grounding (X-Knowledge), Nihon no Kenchiku (Architecture of Japan, Iwanami Shoten), Zen Shigoto (Kengo Kuma – the complete works, Daiwa Shobo), Ten Sen Men (Point Line Plane, Iwanami Shoten), Makeru Kenchiku (Architecture of Defeat, Iwanami Shoten), Shizen na Kenchiku (Natural Architecture, Iwanami Shinsho), Chii-sana Kenchiku (Small Architecture, Iwanami Shinsho) and many others.
1954年生。1990年、隈研吾建築都市設計事務所設立。慶應義塾大学教授、東京大学教授を経て、現在、東京大学特別教授・名誉教授、日本芸術院会員。50を超える国々でプロジェクトが進行中。自然と技術と人間の新しい関係を切り開く建築を提案。主な著書に『隈研吾 オノマトペ 建築 接地性』（エクスナレッジ）、『日本の建築』（岩波新書）、『全仕事』（大和書房）、『点・線・面』（岩波書店）、『負ける建築』（岩波書店）、『自然な建築』、『小さな建築』（岩波新書）、他多数。

Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan Revisited: Traditional Japanese Culture as a Means to Modern American Architecture, an Evening Lecture by Kevin Nute
2025-11-27 18:30 - 20:30 | Arper Japan, HT Jingu Gaien Building, 8th Floor, 2-7-22 Kita Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 107-0061, Japan
Discover how Japanese culture shaped Frank Lloyd Wright’s work with this evening lecture by AIA Japan! Join Professor Kevin Nute for fresh insights on Wright’s organic design philosophy at Arper’s Showroom, November 27, 2025. The lecture will follow a brief Q&A followed by a small snacks and drinks.
Register via Peatix here!
Time: 11/27/2025, 6:30pm
Location: Arper Showroom, Tokyo (address below)
Zoom Online Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88581517905?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 885 8151 7905
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Lecture Description:
Although it has long been accepted that America’s most famous architect was influenced by Japanese culture, the nature of Frank Lloyd Wright’s debt to Japan has remained unclear. Kevin Nute argues that Japan had a more profound impact on Wright’s approach to design and in particular his notion of the organic than has previously been acknowledged. It suggests that the influence of Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908), the leading American authority on Japanese art at the turn of the 20th century, who also happened to be the cousin of Wright’s first employer in Chicago, the Shingle Style architect Joseph Silsbee (1848–1913), was pivotal in bringing together what would become Wright’s twin passions of Japanese art and the organic whole.
Speaker Bio:

Kevin Nute is a professor of architecture at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa. He trained at the Universities of Nottingham and Cambridge and worked in practice in London, Hong Kong, and Singapore before beginning his research career at the University of Tokyo.
He is the author of Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan (1993) which won the 1994 AIA International Monograph Award, Place, Time and Being in Japanese Architecture (2004), Naturally Animated Architecture (2018), This Here Now (2020), The Constructed Other (2021) and Embodied Time (2024)
His work has been featured in The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine and PBS News. He is currently the 2025 scholar in residence at the Fallingwater Institute.

Image Credit: Kevin Nute
Image Credit: Kevin Nute
Image Credit: Kevin Nute
Image Credit: Kevin Nute

AIA Japan Book Talk — Waterfront Regeneration in a Time of Climate Change
2025-12-05 18:30 - 20:30 | Lutron Asuka Co., Ltd., 1 Chome−1−1 Shin-Aoyama Bldg. West 14F, Minamiaoyama, 東京都, 107-0062, Japan
Please follow the link for in-person and online registration, as well as venue details.
https://aiaj-251205.peatix.com/view

When: Friday, December 5, 2025 @ 6:30pm
Venue: Hosted by Lutron at their showroom near Aoyama-Itchome Station
Joining Online via zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89176946951?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 891 7694 6951
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Attendees will earn CES Credits
Join AIA Japan for an engaging book talk featuring Raffaele Pernice (The University of New South Wales), George Kurumado (Takenaka Corporation), and Heide Imai (Senshu University) — chapter authors of Waterfront Regeneration in a Time of Climate Change: Recent Japanese and International Experiences (Routledge, 2025).
Moderated by Professor Tetsuya Yaguchi (Waseda University), this session will explore the resilience of the Tokyo waterfront and how global cities are reimagining their waterfronts in response to climate change. Through Japanese and international case studies, the speakers will highlight strategies that balance ecological restoration, disaster risk reduction, and urban livability.
This hybrid evening event will offer CES Learning Units (HSW) and a valuable opportunity to hear directly from leading voices in sustainable urban design and waterfront planning.

2026 AIA Japan General Assembly & Board Meeting
2026-01-22 19:00 - 21:00 | Gensler Tokyo, METLIFE Aoyama Building 5th Floor 2-11-16 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, 東京都, 107-0062, Japan
Dear AIAJ Members,
We are pleased to announce that the 2026 AIA Japan General Assembly & Board Meeting will be held on Thursday, January 22, 2026. The meeting is open to all AIA Japan members interested in the chapter’s activities, leadership updates, and upcoming initiatives.
Date: January 22, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM (JST)
Format: In person + Zoom
In-Person Location:
Gensler Tokyo
METLIFE Aoyama Bldg 5F
2-11-16 Minami Aoyama
Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062
Join via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85995847865?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 859 9584 7865
Passcode: [REDACTED]
The board will discuss key organizational matters, committee updates, strategic planning, and upcoming events. The agenda will be shared prior to the meeting.
We look forward to your participation.

AIAJ Evening Lecture — Dr. Nataya Friedan on "Oil and water; climate urbanism in Houston, Texas"
2026-02-12 18:30 - 20:30 | Lutron Asuka Co., Ltd., 1 Chome−1−1 Shin-Aoyama Bldg. West 14F, Minamiaoyama, 東京都, 107-0062, Japan
Please follow the link for in-person and online registration, as well as venue details.
https://aiaj-02122026.peatix.com
LECTURE ABSTRACT
As climate change disasters worsen across the globe, it is clear that evidence does not necessarily lead to action. Instead, misinformation, conspiracy, and outright lies have created new forms of climate denial and mistrust in science, especially in the United States. This lecture uses ethnography to bring the climate conversation out of the abstract and down to the concrete of Houston, Texas. In the fall of 2019, Houston experienced the fifth 500-year flood in five years by the federal risk designations at the time. Despite scientific consensus and data specific to the Gulf Coast, many leaders in local government as well as the business community were calling the storms “just another wet cycle.” Drawing on eighteen months of fieldwork beginning in 2018, this lecture follows civil servants, activists, politicians, and businesspeople as they grappled with climate change evidence in an oil industry town. In the day-to-day process of planning flood infrastructure, climate denial was a refusal to look backward as much as forward.
This lecture argues that the consequential falsehood determining action in Houston was not “climate change isn’t real” but “fuel is cheap.” This claim, whether in Houston or elsewhere, requires persistent denial of past liabilities as much as future climate impacts. This lecture looks at how these assumptions at the individual and political level play out on the ground and in Houston’s urban form.
When: Thursday, February 12 from 18:30-20:30
Venue: Hosted by Lutron at their showroom near Aoyama-Itchome Station
Joining Online via zoom: link coming soon
Meeting ID:
Passcode:
[REDACTED] will earn CES Credits
Schedule
Doors Open 18:15
Introduction 18:30
Lutron 5 min
Lecture 18:45-19:30
Questions 19:30-19:45
Refreshments 19:45-20:15
Clean up and exit by 20:30
DR. NATAYA FRIEDAN BIO
Dr. Nataya Friedan is a Postdoctoral Associate in Urban Climate Mitigation and Adaptation at the Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities. Friedan is a social anthropologist whose work focuses on climate adaptation and misinformation in North American cities. Her current book project, Selling Swampland to Yankees, is about the political life of scientific evidence in Houston, Texas, an oil industry town experiencing climate change impacts. Her ethnography follows businessmen, politicians, residents, and activists as they renegotiate the economic concept of externality in the day-to-day process of planning flood infrastructure. Friedan’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Wenner Gren Foundation. Friedan was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University. In 2023, she received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University.

2026 AIA Japan Board Meeting #2
2026-04-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Gensler Tokyo, METLIFE Aoyama Building 5th Floor 2-11-16 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, 東京都, 107-0062, Japan
Dear AIAJ Members,
We are pleased to announce that the 2nd 2026 AIA Japan Board Meeting will be held on Thursday, April 23, 2026. The meeting is open to all AIA Japan members interested in the chapter’s activities, leadership updates, and upcoming initiatives.
Date: April 23, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM (JST)
Format: In person + Zoom
In-Person Location:
Gensler Tokyo
METLIFE Aoyama Bldg 5F
2-11-16 Minami Aoyama
Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062
Join via Zoom: link
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81007942107?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 810 0794 2107
Passcode: [REDACTED]
The board will discuss key organizational matters, committee updates, strategic planning, and upcoming events. The agenda will be shared prior to the meeting.
We look forward to your participation.

2026 AIA Japan Board Meeting #3
2026-07-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Gensler Tokyo, METLIFE Aoyama Building 5th Floor 2-11-16 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, 東京都, 107-0062, Japan
Dear AIAJ Members,
We are pleased to announce that the 3rd 2026 AIA Japan Board Meeting will be held on Thursday, July 23, 2026. The meeting is open to all AIA Japan members interested in the chapter’s activities, leadership updates, and upcoming initiatives.
Date: July 23, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM (JST)
Format: In person + Zoom
In-Person Location:
Gensler Tokyo
METLIFE Aoyama Bldg 5F
2-11-16 Minami Aoyama
Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062
Join via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85762662510?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 857 6266 2510
Passcode: [REDACTED]
The board will discuss key organizational matters, committee updates, strategic planning, and upcoming events. The agenda will be shared prior to the meeting.
We look forward to your participation.

2026 AIA Japan Board Meeting #4
2026-10-29 19:00 - 21:00 | Gensler Tokyo, METLIFE Aoyama Building 5th Floor 2-11-16 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, 東京都, 107-0062, Japan
Dear AIAJ Members,
We are pleased to announce that the 4th and final 2026 AIA Japan Board Meeting will be held on Thursday, October 29, 2026. The meeting is open to all AIA Japan members interested in the chapter’s activities, leadership updates, and upcoming initiatives.
Date: October 29, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM (JST)
Format: In person + Zoom
In-Person Location:
Gensler Tokyo
METLIFE Aoyama Bldg 5F
2-11-16 Minami Aoyama
Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062
Join via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83264648115?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 832 6464 8115
Passcode: [REDACTED]

The board will discuss key organizational matters, committee updates, strategic planning, and upcoming events. The agenda will be shared prior to the meeting.
We look forward to your participation.
