Origins of Sensitivity

Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1989, Takatoku Nishi experienced more than ten relocations during his childhood. These diverse living environments nurtured a deep sensitivity to architectural space, and by the age of nine, he began dreaming of becoming an architect who could shape ideal spaces with his own hands. His early experiences—playing in forests and rivers, napping at shrines—immersed him in the sensory richness of nature: wind, sound, scent, and temperature. These impressions would later become the foundation of his artistic and architectural practice.

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Shifting Paths

In 2008, Nishi enrolled at Tokyo Designer Gakuin College, where he studied architecture and spatial design through hands-on practice. Although he graduated with honors in 2010, the social and economic instability of the time led him to reconsider his career path. Seeking unconventional possibilities in spatial expression, he pursued independent study and entered the Department of Environmental Design at Tama Art University in 2012.

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Encountering Light

During his time at Tama Art University, Nishi’s perspective on space was transformed through encounters with lighting designer Satoshi Uchihara and Japanese garden designer Shunmyo Masuno. He became fascinated by the expressive potential of light and the Japanese aesthetic concept of mitate (analogy or poetic reinterpretation). In 2013, inspired by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, he created the work Boundary of Light and Shadow, exploring the interplay of darkness and light. The piece won the top prize in a lighting design competition for architects, marking a turning point in his exploration of light-space interaction. In 2015, he presented MIRAGE CUBE, a work that visualized the relationship between optical phenomena and space, and graduated at the top of his class.

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Deepening Expression

In 2016, Nishi entered the master’s program at Tokyo University of the Arts. That same year, he co-founded the Spatial Expression Laboratory with artist Taro Suzuki, serving as its director. He deepened his exploration of light and spatial expression, completing over ten projects by the time he graduated in 2018. His final project, SKY PATH, focused on the relationship between natural landscapes and optical phenomena, capturing the beauty of light as it appears in nature. The work received an internal university award.

 

Expanding Internationally

In 2018, Nishi began his doctoral studies at Tokyo University of the Arts and launched his international activities. He participated in an artist residency in Malta, furthering his understanding of light and space, and conducted illuminance-based research across five European countries, including the Netherlands. The unique quality of Dutch light and his experience of Peter Zumthor’s architecture had a profound impact on his research. In 2020, he presented Ripple, a work that established three key elements of spatial expression: atmosphere, landscape, and mitate. His doctoral thesis based on this work earned him a Ph.D. Ripple received numerous accolades, including the Nomura Art Prize, a historic double win of the Grand Prize and Special Prize at the JID AWARD, and top honors at the LIT and BLT Awards for emerging architectural lighting and design. In total, the work garnered 17 titles across 11 major domestic and international awards.

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A New Chapter

Although Nishi planned to continue his international activities in 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic made travel difficult. He re-entered the doctoral program at Tokyo University of the Arts, this time in the field of architectural research, under the guidance of structural engineer Mitsuhiro Kanada. His focus shifted to structural studies that apply optical phenomena to spatial composition. In 2022, he co-founded the artist duo OSOTO lab. with Yumeo Nakayama, exploring the relationship between natural environments and spatial expression. In 2023, he resumed international activities, joining the HIAP residency in Finland through the TOKAS bilateral exchange program. Thanks to the support of Nordic architecture scholar Takashi Koizumi, Nishi visited nearly 100 buildings during the residency. Among them, the poetic light experiences in the architecture of Juha Leiviskä left a lasting impression.

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Theory and Future

Today, Nishi continues to deepen his theoretical framework of Phenomena Architecture, which translates natural phenomena into spatial experiences, grounded in structural experimentation within Apparatus Architecture. In this theory, the apparatus functions as a “poetic structure” that observes and transforms natural forces, while the phenomenon emerges as the sensory experience shaped by that transformation. Through research in Finland and other Nordic regions, Nishi compares light environments and human perception, spatializing the “poetics of light” shaped by geographic conditions. His work seeks new forms of resonance between nature and architecture.