Roppongi has many faces including, an entertainment district with a foreign twist, new offices for daily business, and is developing as a center for the Tokyo art scene. The Lighting Detectives sped around on their bikes in April to discove…

Date: December 4th, 2007 Program: City Tour, Exhibition, Symposium Venue: Royal Acadamy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen Transnational Tanteidan Forum 2007 in Copenhagen What started in Tokyo in 2002 is now in its 6th year…

Five main canals fan out from the central station to form the city of Amsterdam. In contrast to the nostalgic streetscape along the canals, newly redeveloped areas include modern Dutch architecture with a touch of humor. Because these build…

10 December 2007 Winter Blues Winter is a cold and quiet time where people gather indoors, drink hot cocoa or coffee, and maybe reflect on the year before and ahead. But Christmas in the city always gives us something to get out and about a…

A city for the young and young at heart, Shibuya. The area is composed of a mess of streets all with a different atmosphere, including a few main streets connected by narrower alleyways. Each street has developed its own personality and rol…

Because of previous colonial rule and occupation by Spain, USA, and Japan, many different cultures are accepted in the Philippines. As with architecture or cuisine, the uniquely arranged culture is also visible in the lighting environment. …

28 Septmber 2007 Night Gazing in Yokohama …by: natsuko ueda It has been a long time since the Lighting Detectives have been walked Yokohama. This autumn evening 24 members participated in the walk, along with member of the Yokohama Ci…

01 August 2007 Searching for Heroes and Villains of Light The Roppongi One-Mile. In a one-mile radius (1.6 km), there are over 40 embassies, 9 international schools, and National Art Center, Mori Art Museum, and Suntory Museum of Art comple…

June 22, 2007 Sumer Solstice “Turn off the lights and take it slow.” Candle Night, a environmental and energy conservation event that also focuses on habits of the modern lifestyle and finding ones inner sense of time, is the brainchild of …

Wien is a city of artistic culture built upon the glory of the Habsburg Family Rein. Floodlights illuminate the heavy, stone architecture along the old streets, but just across the way is newer architecture with systems of LED`s that illumi…

Ljubljana, the self-contained capital of Slovenia has a charming old cityscape made up of buildings topped with red tiled roofs. At dusk, people flock to the Ljubljana River to rest after a busy day and watch the lights come on over the cit…

Graz is the second largest city in Austria. The Mor River runs through the center, with old cityscape and warm-colored street lighting giving the city a cozy feel. On the other hand, Kunst Haus and other newer architecture have added an ele…

The Marunouchi district in the center of Tokyo has been transformed in recent years from a business and financial center to the latest redevelopment to intertwine commercial and office space. Our survey started in Marunouchi, as we closed i…

Spring of 2007 in the city-state of Hong Kong; a million dollar nightscape along the waterfront, rows of neon signs create the streetscape, and everywhere you look construction sites for new skyscrapers. The transformation of the city is la…

5 March 2007 This month in cooperation with Yamagiwa Corp., we rented out the Space Studio in the Yamagiwa Livina Showroom in the Akihabara District of Tokyo. It is a big and spacious studio with designer furniture and light fixtures on dis…

Bangkok, a city in a swirl of on-going change. In our previous survey of Tokyo’s Kanda River, we discover that the backs of buildings face the river creating and area of dark contrast in the middle of the city. But here along the Chaopraya …

In Bangkok, the development of giant commercial facilities continues, as modern times blend with Buddhism to create the nightscape. The light from architecture, high-class restaurants, and shopping centers of these civilized, modern times a…

16 February 2007 As new condominiums keep popping up everywhere, the new area of focus is the Toyosu District. Large-scale commercial facilities and a university campus also complete this “model” for new urban planning. As the cold winds of…

Date: November 23rd, 2006 Program: City Tour, Workshop, Exhibition, Symposium Venue: URA Center Transnational Tanteidan Forum 2006 in Singapore In 2002, the Transnational Tanteidan Forum started in Tokyo, moved to Europe and the US, and, no…

From up above Tokyo looks like an overturn jewelry box, the night streets glitter with lights and it a fairly beautiful sight. Once back on ground, the glitter has turned harsh. It is an economically advanced nightscape, an efficient nights…