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Keeping pace with contemporary times, Architect Yukio Asari of Love Architecture Inc. substantiates his belief that 'time' and 'space' for revisiting the dead should be transcendent and beyond human knowledge by designing an ossuary in Japan. Check it out and leave us your views on the subject…

Showcasing the myriad qualities of colour and its native existence, IAnD's Colour Special Issue kicks off with "tips & tricks" for colours by renowned Colour Expert and Architect Emmanuelle Moureaux from Japan…

Emmanuelle Moureaux explores the effect of colour on cognitive thinking in children with her new fit-out at a mall in Japan. Check it out here and leave us your views...

Ar. Masahiko Sato refurbishes an old concrete home in Japan by introducing warmth through wood and plenty of light. Check it out here and leave us your feedback…

In what may feel like a flashback to the porn wars of the '60s, a new study investigates the link between a country's relative gender equality and the degree of female "empowerment" in the X-rated entertainment it consumes. Researchers at the University of Hawaii focused on three countries in particular: Norway, the United States and Japan, which are respectively ranked 1st, 15th and (yikes) 54th on the United Nations' Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). To simplify their analysis, their library of smut was limited to explicit photographs of women "from mainstream pornographic magazines and Internet websites, as well as from the portfolios of the most popular porn stars from each nation." Then they set out to evaluate each image on both a disempowerment and an empowerment scale, using respective measures like whether the woman is "bound and dominated" by "leashes, collars, gags, or handcuffs" or "whether she has a natural looking body." Their hypothesis was that societies with greater gender equity will consume pornography that has more representations of "empowered women" and less of "disempowered women." It turned out the former was true, but, contradictory as it may sound, the latter was not. "While Norwegian pornography offers a wider variety of body types -- conforming less to a societal ideal that is disempowering to the average woman -- there are still many images that do not promote a healthy respect for women," the researchers explain. In other words, Norwegian porn showed more signs of female empowerment, but X-rated images in all three countries equally depicted women in demeaning positions and scenarios. This, the researchers surmise, "suggests that empowerment and disempowerment within pornography are potentially different constructs." So, gender equality is accompanied by sexual interest in a broader range of beauty types but not a decrease in porn's infantilization of females, use of dominating fetish gear on women or any of the other characteristics th

How does a seamless interior-exterior connect enhance the architecture? Check out this bank in Japan that uses colour, light and spatial division to create complex depth and density…

Sergey Makhno Architects communicate Japanese philosophy with a Ukrainian soul in their latest project: #FujiwaraYoshi, the largest #Japanese restaurant in #Ukraine. Find out more here

@ktx-archilab designs an iconic fixture for racket-sports lovers in Japan. Check out the full story here…

Why should linear designs be the preserves of weekend homes/resorts? Can we not employ them in regular homes and redefine our living spaces? Get to know about two such experiments and leave us your views.