“Our goal is to create a total environment through Urban Planning.”

ATELIER HITOSHI ABE (JAPAN)
www.a-slash.jp

Dr Hitoshi Abe was born in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan in 1962. He studied architecture at the Tohoku University in Sendai and in 1989 obtained his Masters in Architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, in Los Angeles, USA.

Dr Abe maintains a practice in Sendai, where he located in 1992 after winning first place in the competition to design Miyagi Stadium. Before opening his own atelier, he worked for Coop Himmelblau in Los Angeles. In addition to teaching at the Tohoku Institute, Abe has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, and at the Miyagi National College of technology.

Miyagi Stadium © MAP Systems

He is among the most important architects of the current Japanese generation, known for his work that is spatially complex and structurally innovative. Among his best-known public works are the Miyagi stadium in 2000, the Reihoku community hall, for which he received the 2003 Architectural Institute of Japan Award, and the Sasaki Office Factory for Prosthetics which won the Good Design Award in 2005.

Kanno Museum of Art © Daici Ano

Hitoshi Abe currently chairs the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). The 45-year-old architect went to Los Angeles by way of the Tohoku Institute of Technology, in Sendai, Japan, where he was professor in charge of the Architecture and Urban Design Laboratory and director of the Architectural Design Education Committee.

Reihoku Community Hall © Daici Ano