Book: 'Dentsu Inc. Design Talk Vol.2' Seiichi Saito × Yugo Nakamura × Akio Iida "Creating Opportunities to Create"

Saito: Methodologically speaking, it's about micro and macro perspectives. For example, if you slightly move an elevator shaft, at the micro level, only the steel frame itself moves. But at the macro level, that affects the facade design and changes it slightly. Even in the work I'm doing now, we discuss ultra-detailed things individually, like "if this person's motivation drops, the final product could change this much," while also considering the whole from a macro, pulled-back perspective. In architecture, it's like scaling out from a single door detail to see how the city level changes. When I was at an architecture firm, the truly outstanding people were those who could see both micro and macro, advancing projects while maintaining both perspectives. Like realizing that changing the detail of 24 doors would reduce the total cost by this much, so single-pane glass becomes double-pane. You think, "They consider it this deeply?" Aren't architects generally good at that?

Nakamura: Also, there's this idea that things that take a very long time have value. I'm not saying things made in an instant have no value, but I do have this complex that the various things poured into a single piece of work—compared to architecture—feel lighter in the work I'm doing now.

Iida: But conversely, architects might look at us and think it's nice. In a way, we have freedom – we can work with architects, engage with urban issues. Watching architects, you see industry constraints, unbreakable barriers like which university you graduated from. Architecture has its own challenges with that lack of freedom.

Architectural Thinking Beyond Professional Boundaries

Saito: The other day, talking with people in architecture, I realized architects tend to view things from a pretty negative perspective, right? Starting from a negative thought and trying to turn it positive. Back when I was designing commercial facilities, if I suggested putting up a big mirror ball, they'd say, "That's above a public road." If I then said, "Let's go talk to the city officials," they'd say, "That's impossible." The architecture team starts from "That probably won't work" and finds the threshold of "Hmm, maybe we can squeeze it in." I'm more of an idiot with positive thinking, like "Surely we can still do it!" Architects start out optimistically when first shaping the design, but once planning begins or estimates are requested, they suddenly snap back to reality, saying things like "This part is impossible." My work, however, stays optimistic until the very end. While the scale of societal impact or safety standards differs fundamentally, I realized that mindset is quite different.

Iida: Personally, I feel architecture today isn't just about building structures. It's about applying architectural thinking to urban planning, or returning to the original, more fundamental ideas of architecture from the past. Things like building communities, creating connections between people, and elevating a town to the next stage. In that sense, it's not exactly a throwback to our ancestors, but I think we are returning to those roots.
Personally, after graduating from architecture school and working in publishing, I feel like I've completed a huge cycle. When I look back, my student days coincided with the controversy over building a nuclear reprocessing plant in Rokkasho Village. My father, who is also in architecture, was actually involved in that project. I was just a kid back then, so I argued with him, asking, "Is this really okay?" That influence actually led to my graduation project: designing a plant for Rokkasho Village that utilized a closed-loop system combining wind and hydroelectric power.3.Then, after Fukushima happened, we all started rethinking energy. I'm now researching with people from Miyagi Prefecture and farmers in Ishinomaki how fermented foods can help expel radioactive substances from the body. These ideas are coming full circle for me now. It doesn't matter what my current job is – I feel like I should use whatever tools I have in my toolbox, whether it's advertising, urban planning, or architecture! That's what I think architectural thinking is.