Portfolio (December 2021)

EIJI JIMBO

EIJI JIMBO 1766 15th Ave S. Seattle, WA 98144 USA jimbo.eiji@gmail.com +1.313.231.2677 Jimbo spent much of his childhood in Metro Detroit and Tokyo, concentrated on reading manga comics, skiing, and bickering with his older sisters. His time is now spent kite surfing, gardening, During his time in Detroit, he founded a design collaborative known as Thing Thing, producing objects from waste materials. His innate technical abilities and deep curiosity led him to become an Architecture and Landscape Architecture graduate student at the University of California. He is exploring a wide range of subjects, including but not limited to vernacular construction, mass timber, design build, and urban forestry. He has shown collaborative work at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Shenzhen Biennial of Urbanism and Architecture, and Venice Architecture Biennale. Jimbo is unshakable balanced demeanor, mad culinary skills, and enthusiastic billiards games. He is currently working as a carpenter building homes in Seattle.

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THING THING established 2012 Detroit, MI

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MAKING FRIENDS exhibited at 2012 Biennale di Venezia

BATH BATH

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Feeding Hungry Spirits Fall 2018 Tassajara, CA

THE URBAN FOREST FARM

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Final Advanced Studio Spring 2019 Detroit, MI

Venice, Italy

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TT & M exhibited at 2013 Wanted NYC Design Week

CARR CENTER

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July 2014 Detroit, MI

New York, NY

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TIMBER TIMBER Alameda Marina Collaborative Alameda, CA

LEARNING FROM LOLLAPALOOZA Research on the City Grant Fall 2013 Ann Arbor, MI

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T H I N G T H I N G

THING THING is a design collective based in Detroit, MI. Established in 2012, THING THING has been designing installations for architecture biennials, exhibitions for design/ music festivals, and objects, furniture, products for fun. Through our unique sensibilities we bring new light to the banalities of objects, industrial processes, and ubiquitous materials. THING THING has exhibited at the 2012 Venice Biennale, 2013 NYC Design Week, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2015 Hong Kong-Shenzhen BiCity Biennale, and others. Bonkers is our aesthetic, we hope you like it.

THING THING is Rachel Mulder, Simon Anton, Thom Moran and Eiji Jimbo

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MAKING FRIENDS Made from Detroit’s discarded plastic, Making Friends is a room sized puzzle made of friendly pieces. Each piece, or “friend,” can stand alone as an enigmatic domestic object as well as be a part of a larger whole. The project is made with an impoverished material process (recycling plastic by hand) to promote an optimistic attitude about what is possible with very little resources for both design and Detroit. Shown at the 2012 Venice Biennale as a part of 13178 Moran St - Grounds For Detroit.

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TT & M tt and m were objects born from a proposal for Battery Park’s “Draw Up a Chair” competition. The concept was a font type that could function both as a typeface and a whimsical seating arrangement. You can relax on a ‘b’ while you place your coffee on an ‘i’. Taking inspiration from Bruno Munari’s “ABC with Imagination,” we settled on three primitive shapes: ‘j’, ‘moon’, and ‘white space.’ The forms join in different ways to create numbers, an exclamation point, and an alphabet of chairs. Prototypes of tt and m were made to represent the collaboration between Thing Thing and Michael Savona. tt and m have been exhibited at 2013 Wanted NYC Design Week, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

T I M B E R T I M B E R TIMBER TIMBER Timber Timber was a proposal for architecture offices, fabrication space, and live/work spaces. The site is in Alameda, California, and the prompt for the project specifically asked to take into account projections of sea level rise at year 100. There were unique design and construction obstacles that were addressed because of this prompt.

Timber timber focused on the construction process of the building.

1st Floor Plan @ 1/8” = 1’0”

Elements were designed to be built using cross laminated timber and glue laminated timber. Taking insight from our site visits to the fabricator, it would be easy for the fabrication space to produce these elements as sea level rises. Components of the super structure were also modular in form, making it easy to deconstruct and build higher.

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2nd Floor Plan @ 1/8” = 1’0”

Third Floor Plan 58’ 0”

Second Floor Plan 42’ 0”

First Floor Plan 28’ 0”

+16’4” by 2125 Site Plan 12’ 0”

+8’0” high tide

Section

3rd Floor Plan @ 1/8” = 1’0”

+0’0” sea level -2’1” low tide

@ 1/8” = 1’0”

Growing Medium

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Drainage Mat Lightweight Aggregate (Pumice) Rootstop Membrane Scupper Flashing Plywood Type ACX (3/4”)

2-way Drainage Lightweight Aggregate Filter Barrier Drainage Mat Rootstop Membrane 3-1/2” Tongue and Groove Structural Decking (3.5”)

Double Glazing Sliding Glass Doors Shoji Screens

Vegetation Soil/Growing Medium (6”) Landscaping Barrier Filter/Drainage Layer

Hardwood Flooring Finish 3” Concrete Radiant Floor Plywood Subfloor Insulation 3-1/2” Tongue and Groove

Waterproofing Layer Smooth Gravel (white)

2-way Drainage Planter with Drain Scupper

Vegetation Soil/Growing Medium Filter Barrier Drainage Mat Rootstop Membrane Waterproofing Membrane 3-1/2” Tongue and Groove Structural Decking (3.5”)

Soil/Growing Medium

Filter Barrier Tiebacks Lightweight Aggregate 2” Diameter Woven Steel Rings

Wall Section (East Facing)

Wall Section at Tree Well

@ 1/2” = 1’0”

@ 1/2” = 1’0”

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B A T H B A T H

BATH BATH Bath Bath was a design proposal for a bath house at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. A zen buddhist monastery, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center is a training grounds for buddhist monks during the winter, as well as a retreat center that is open to the public during the summer. Situated deep in the woods of the Ventana Wilderness the bathhouse landscape takes inspiration from these contextual moments, as well as from zen buddhist architecture.

The concept for this project is the process of bathing as a form of meditation. The experience at Tassajara can be cherished with a landscape that lightly touches the existing, and adding to the enriching experience of meditation. Thus, one long path was designed to get a person from the ‘town’ of Tassajara to the bathhouse. The path starts off as a broad paving, getting narrower as you walk along, and eventually turning to stepping stones, allowing only one person to enter the bathhouse at a time.

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shoe shelf changing area

Mixed Coniferous Oak Woodland Canyon Live Oak Buckeye Coulter Pine Santa Lucia Fir Soap Root Lupine California Poppy

barefoot raised boardwalk

LP +1618.7

solo hot spring

Chaparral

LP +1601.3

bath shrine

Chamise Manzanita Coffeeberry Toyon Monkey Flower Redbud California Sage

LP +1585.1 FFE +1610.8

LP +1601.6

Adenostoma fasciculatum Arctostaphylos uva-ursi Rhamnus californica Heteromeles arbutifolia Mimulus aurantiacus Cercis occidentalis Artemisia californica

Riparian Woodland Swordfern Wild ginger California Wax Myrtle Salal California Nutmeg Bigleaf Maple White Alder Western Sycamore Barberry Gooseberry

FFE +1613.4

LP +1615.7

Quercus chrystolepis Aesculus californica Pinus coulteri Abies bracteata Chlorogalum pomeridianum Lupinus spp.

Eschscholzia californica

FFE +1615.5 LP +1613.7

spring water overflow

Polystichum munitum Asarum caudatum Morella californica Gaultheria shallon Torreya californica Acer macrophyllum Alnus rhombifolia Platanus racemosa Berberis aquifolium Ribes sanguineum

HP +1606.7

LP +1608.7 LP +1608.2

(1630

HP +1610.9

LP +1601.2

(1600

spring water overflow

N

HP +1610.9

(1620

LP +1605.2

Scale = 1:10 0’

(1610

10’

20’

30’

40’

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I walk into the valley and thru the torii the early sun warmly gazes torii (gate)

the path slowly disintegrates

shadow dance

while shadows dance to its beat as I make my daily pilgrimage sink into the rhythm and release that deep deep sigh as your body soaks in liquid gold

the warm gaze

sink into the rhythms

T. U. F. F.

THE URBAN FOREST FARM The Urban Forest Farm (T.U.F.F.) is a proposal for an urban timber forest in the city of Detroit. The site is the open space of the Herman Kiefer complex, and seeks to create an economically and ecologically sustainable productive landscape. With over 25 sq miles of vacant land, productive landscapes offer an opportunity of stitched together ecological fabrics that aggregate and work together to provide a resilient and diverse landscape.

The project is phased as a successional forest, first establishing fast growing pioneer species to establish a canopy. Underneath the overstory, shade tolerant hardwoods would be interplanted.

The timber forest would be thinned and harvested over a 50 year establishing period to promote succession, provide an economic gain, and ecological resilience. Resilience is promoted through selecting species that are in USDA zone 6 to account for climate change, as well as preventative stormwater management measures.

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Blaine St. Section

5

10

20

40 FT

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Winter

Fall

Spring

Summer

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A

Stadium Seating 1-1/2“ = 1’0”

C

Tree Thru Hole 1-1/2“ = 1’0”

Seat Back

Extension of Deck

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Plan of Porch Deck 1/4” = 1’0” A

Milled Drip Nail Laminated Timber Custom Welded Steel Plate Anchor Bolt Subgrade

Concrete Pile (10”

)

1x4 NOM x4” Pavers Sand

1/4”Steel Flat Bar 1/8”Steel Flat Bar

B

Two Separate Grates Connected With Clasp

Offset Tree Well

Accounts for uneven tree growth

C

Tapered Ledge

C

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Bungee Bench 1-1/2“ = 1’0”

A

B

C

Steel Enclosure Glulam Post Drip Concrete Foundation Underground Conduit

2x6 Header DG

Installed in two lifts

Base Aggregate

Subgrade

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Plan of In/Formal Alley 1/4” = 1’0”

A

Custom Street Light 1-1/2“ = 1’0”

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CARR CENTER PROPOSAL This project was a commission for an elaborate section perspective drawing for an AKOAKI proposal, detailing the schematic design for a partial renovation of the Carr Center. Currently the Carr Center promotes, preserves and presents African and African-American cultural arts traditions. The proposed renovations on the first floor include a gallery/exhibition area and a social space for gathering, reading and browsing. The second floor consists of studio space for artists in residence, sound rooms and administrative offices. Lastly the third floor houses a flexible cultural landscape, featuring Spanish stairs, double skinned pavilions, and performance and rehearsal space.

C A R R C E N T E R

This drawing was done in collaboration with Rachel Mulder.

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Photo Credit: AKOAKI

The schematic design for the Carr Center proposed to renovate all three floors. The third floor, or the grand ballroom, required the most work. Rather than painstakingly remove and demo the existing conditions, the proposal suggested a conservationist approach -- encasement of the current conditions.

Photo Credit: AKOAKI

Photo Credit: AKOAKI

The way the plaster had chipped away at certain places had brought about beautiful patterns, cracks, and colors, impossible to achieve by the human hand. The section perspective drawing attempted to capture the existing conditions with all its grandeur; details of the crown molding, windows and cracks were included in the section.

Photo Credit: AKOAKI

L E A R N I N G F R O M L O L L A P A L O O Z A

Every summer 50,000 people spend four days

musical performers from around the world set these

Dozens of music festivals take place throughout

strong place in the architectural imagination, taking

forms of temporary urbanism. Just as “Learning

Learning for Lollapalooza was a grant based

camping on a 1,200 acre plot of farmland in

two constituencies against each other by riling the

Michigan. From 40 year old nonprofit folk festivals

many forms in the speculative drawings, zines, blogs

from Las Vegas” asked architects, designers, and

research project done in collaboration with Rachel

Rothbury, Michigan. The campers bring tents, RV’s,

audience into a sleepless orgy of Dionysian freak-

with fewer than 500 campers, to corporate

and critique spaces of generations of architecture

urbanists to apply the lessons elsewhere, this project

Mulder, Simon Anton, Thom Moran and Eiji Jimbo.

gutted school buses, alcohol, drugs, hand drums,

outs. At the end of the weekend the campers pack

sponsored pop festivals with tens of thousands

schools. The reality is that this dream is happening

was not advocating architects to become involved in

face-paint, hippy inflatables, marginal supplies

up and head out. In a couple of days the site is

of first time attendees. The cultural phenomenon

at this very moment, without architects nor urbanists

the planning and design of music festivals. Instead,

Above: Combining digital and analog processes to

of food, and a myriad of other domestic and

back to resembling 1,200 acres of farmland in rural

of the music festival has reached a high level of

critical observation. Festival organizers have already

the work aimed to gather intelligence from an

compose drawings.

performative ephemera. Festival organizers provide

Michigan.

success, ubiquity and maturity. Curiously, architects

exhibited the logistical, organizational, cultural and

ongoing phenomenon that we can apply within the

the medical services, waste management, potable

and urbanists have still not paid much attention to

representational intelligences to design, build,

field of architecture. Learning from Lollapalooza

water, bathing stations, information booths, ticket

this juggernaut of an urban type. Music festivals

and run these temporary cities. This intelligence,

invents a way of representation that captures and

processors, musical performance production, and

remain woefully undocumented, overlooked and

however, lies outside the discipline, trapped in the

combines the geometries and abstractions of space

the physical infrastructure and oversight for large

untheorized by the very fields that could stand

offices and onsite trailers of these tacit designers.

that are normally associated with maps, with the

scale transportation, parking, and food/merchandise

to gain the most from studying these temporary

Through historical and theoretical research we will

particulars of experience, the vibe, and qualitative

vendors. Throughout the weekend, hundreds of

urbanisms. The dream of the instant city has a

position the music festival against other historical

values of each music festival.

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Blissfest Petoskey, MI Heavy Bond, 36” x 57” “Blissfest

preserves

traditions

and

promotes innovators of American and world music, arts and sustainable living through performance, education and community participation.”

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Faster Horses Music Festival Brooklyn, MI, U.S.A. Sign Banner Vinyl, 36” x 60” “3 Day Country Music and Camping Festival!”

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Beaver Island Music Festival Petoskey, MI Tiled Computer Paper, 96” x 96” “Our main goal is to bring attention to the beautiful world that we live in (especially Beaver Island) by uniting all of these talents and people.”

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Big Ticket Music Festival Gaylord, MI Heavy Bond, 48” x 67” “The Big Ticket Festival is designed to be a celebration for Christ! Our mission is to create an experience for every member of the family to feel and know the love of Christ.”

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Nor-east’r Milo, MI Strathmore, 78” x 50” “An annual event to celebrate the creative and performance arts.”

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D O V E T A I L G C

VIA 6 This project was a commercial renovation of the ground floor of an apartment complex.

The renovation was made up of three different programs: a cafe, bar, and mezzanine. Pictured here is the bar portion of the renovation. Elements that I worked on included but were not limited to the bar, countertop, base, and custom electrical housing.

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