Though I travel a lot, I rarely get sick during that time. Unfortunately, during this past Golden Week (Japanese spring holiday week), this was not the case. I suffered from pneumonia and struggled all the way back to Japan. I realized at that moment that I had a history of coming down with something during my Golden Week trips.

This year, the journey started from still chilly Akita prefecture, traveling through China, then Italy, Sri Lanka, and Morocco. Obviously, I couldn’t adjust quickly enough to cope with the extreme gaps of temperatures among these places.

We designed pavilions in those countries. For all of the projects, KKAA’s idea and method of assembling small pieces to build up a whole structure remained the same. However, what has emerged in the end vary surprisingly from place to place – naturally. For example, for the pavilion set up in the sculpture park in Arte Sella, Italy, we used pieces of solid wood with a thickness of 58mm to withstand the harsh climate in the mountains. To the contrary, the one we displayed at the Rabat Biennale in Morocco (below photo) was built with 15mm-thick plywood, which turned out to be a sharp geometric structure inspired by the motif of traditional Moroccan latticework

Each pavilion has its own character and reflects well the diversity of the world. If only our bodies could adapt so comfortable to that same diversity.