Kansai Studies
dot architects & Nagara Wada

dot architects is an architecture firm based in the Kitakagaya district of Osaka at Coop Kitakagaya, a self-styled “collaborative studio for practicing another society,” which brings together people and organizations from across different fields and disciplines, including art, alternative media, archiving, architecture, area studies, clubs, and nonprofits. It works collaboratively with both specialists and nonspecialists during the design and construction process. Not only design, dot architects is also involved with on-site construction, research projects and art projects. At the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2016, it was one of the exhibitors in the Japan Pavilion, which was awarded a special mention. In the past, it has also developed the research project researchlight with the design team UMA / design farm at Kyoto Experiment. The collective currently has six members: Toshikatsu Ienari, Takeshi Shakushiro, Wataru Doi, Keiko Miyachi, Ai Ikeda and Ryosuke Katsube.

Nagara Wada graduated with a degree in film and performing arts from Kyoto University of Art and Design, and then completed the art studies master’s program at the same university. Establishing shitatame in February 2011, she started working as a theater director based in Kyoto. In her practice, she creates theater that uses language and the body to zoom in on the vast amount of details that we miss in our daily lives, as if stringing together a series of failed attempts to grasp something. She collaborates with artists from such other fields as visual art and photography. In 2015, she won Best Work at the fifth edition of the Telling a Story by Creating from a Play Script competition. In 2018, she won the Audience Award at the Komaba Agora Directors Concours. Since 2018, she has served as the bookings manager for the multidisciplinary art space UrBANGUILD. From 2019, she has been involved with the cartographical research project Our Freehand Atlas. She is a 2021 Saison Fellow I.