Mio Tsuneyama on ‘urban wild ecology’

Mio Tsuneyama, co-founder of Studio Mnm, approaches structure as a technique of restore. In her work as an architect, Tsuneyama challenges Japan’s prevailing scrap-and-build strategy by respiratory new life into current buildings utilizing discarded and biodegradable supplies. From small-scale materials experiments to long-term renovations, her tasks unfold slowly and intentionally.

Forward of her upcoming lecture “City Wild Ecology” (Melbourne College of Design’s public Treseder lecture, 2 September 2025), Tsuneyama spoke with Nancy Yao Ji, a lecturer in architectural design on the College of Melbourne, about what the idea of “city wild ecology” means to her and the way it informs her tasks.

Nancy Yao Ji: You’ve accomplished a various vary of tasks, from small huts to renovations and materials experiments. A standard thread operating via your work is the idea of “city wild ecology,” which can also be the title of your upcoming public lecture. Might you inform us a bit about what this implies to you?

Mio Tsuneyama: We first used the time period “city wild ecology” because the subtitle of our mission, Holes within the Home, the place we at present dwell and work whereas renovating on the similar time. We needed to reconnect with the wildness inside us – the innate nature we had after we have been born. Dwelling within the metropolis, we’re surrounded by companies that assist our lives, however in doing so, we lose this sense of wildness. The concept was to convey it again by fixing what we are able to with what’s round us – gathering discarded supplies and adopting a bricolage strategy to restore.

By these actions, we reconnect with the ecology round us. That was our place to begin. Over time, we started to grasp “city wild ecology” as extra of an perspective. In contrast to political or deep ecology, which have a tendency towards extremes, it’s human-scale, oriented towards on a regular basis life and respectful of each human and non-human types of life. It’s nonetheless creating – extra an evolving philosophy than a hard and fast principle.

NYJ: You’ve additionally described structure as a posh mesh, a form of “city fungus.” Are these concepts related to the wildness you wish to get well?

MT: Sure. City fungus highlights the fact that structure is shaped by a posh mesh. The actors embrace supplies – from their origins in nature to their decomposition – in addition to abilities, data, traditions, tradition and other people, all of whom are like microorganisms inside this mesh. Structure itself is a mesh; it can not exist alone, however solely as a part of a residing system. “City wild ecology” is the perspective that helps us reconnect this mesh.

NYJ: I’d like to listen to extra about how these concepts play out in your Holes within the Home mission, which you’ve been renovating for about eight years and which has formed your apply and strategy to structure.

MT: Holes within the Home is our own residence, a 30-year-old home we purchased in 2017. We moved in after eradicating pointless parts and started residing in it whereas renovating little by little, relying on time and finances. Renovation turned a part of our every day life – generally pressing, like ending the ground when our youngster was born. The work is organically related to our on a regular basis lives.

We acquire leftover or dead-stock supplies and renovate with what we name “city trash,” in addition to biodegradable supplies. We wish to display alternate options to Japan’s scrap-and-build mentality, the place homes are sometimes demolished after solely 30 years. As a substitute, we intention to indicate that current properties can achieve worth via the fitting interventions and upkeep. That is additionally a critique of each the housing business and capitalism itself, the place mass consumption and manufacturing are now not sustainable. “City wild ecology” asks: how can we alter this technique – or supply alternate options – whereas bettering housing high quality, together with insulation?

NYJ: It appears like a course of with no fastened end result, the place the home frequently evolves with new supplies and concepts.

MT: Precisely. It’s each an experimental mission and a mirrored image of what we’ve realized from our different tasks. From our mission Home for Seven Individuals, we realized to worth current homes. A gardener taught us in regards to the significance of soil, so we dug up the concrete outdoors our entrance and planted greenery.

Our materials data additionally shapes choices. We use stable timber as an alternative of plywood, which is filled with glue. We experiment with biodegradable textiles resembling cotton and hemp – supplies which can be skinny, produce much less waste and return simply to the earth. Our balustrade is produced from timber frames stretched with cotton, and we staple cotton instantly onto picket ceiling frames. We additionally use paper for screens. These decisions create a posh mesh of supplies and life round the home.

NYJ: How do these concepts affect your strategy to new buildings?

MT: We at all times attempt to study from conventional ecological data. Conventional Japanese homes use impartial stone foundations, breathable supplies, and joinery methods that interlock timber with out steel fixings. Whereas steel fixings weaken over time, timber joinery strengthens, permitting buildings to final centuries.

Conventional buildings additionally educate us the way to design utilizing methods resembling lengthy eaves to guard the facade, and earthen partitions that take in earthquake injury to guard the construction. These strategies mirror over 1,000 years of collected knowledge. We can not compete with this data, however we are able to study from it and reinterpret it for modern circumstances. In our personal tasks, we design utilizing impartial foundations with minimal concrete, exclude petroleum-based supplies, and intention for off-grid programs with photo voltaic panels and batteries. That is the form of ecological data we’re looking for.

Tsuneyama is the 2025 Robert Garland Treseder Fellow on the College of Structure, Constructing and Planning on the College of Melbourne. The fellowship allows artists, enterprise innovators, designers, coverage leaders, start-ups, architects and students devoted to the event and promotion of design-based innovation to go to Melbourne.

Tsuneyama will current on the Melbourne College of Design’s upcoming public Treseder lecture alongside Japanese architect Fuminori Nousaku. Collectively, they are going to talk about the capitalist system of mass manufacturing and consumption that has led to environmental degradation, together with ecosystem collapse and world warming, and introduce the idea of “city wild ecology.”