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BNH Business and Civic Awards: MINORITY BUSINESSPERSON OF THE YEAR
Building Blocks
Architect Sakamoto creates spaces that 'humanize' his adopted home town
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Business New Haven
2/2/2004
By: Karen Singer
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You might not recognize Dean Sakamoto's name, but you're probably familiar with his work.
The unusual arbor enclosing outdoor tables at Miso restaurant on Orange Street in downtown New Haven, the 1950s-style façade and colorful interior of Hull's University Art Supply & Framing store on Chapel Street, and the municipal Web site banner on the bottom tier of the Temple Street garage are examples of the architect's imprint on New Haven.
"For me it has always been a quest to humanize spaces and make them relevant to people who use them," says Sakamoto, 42, whose business, Dean Sakamoto Architects, captured three winning projects in the AIA (American Institute of Architecture) Connecticut 2003 Design Awards program.
One award was for Miso restaurant; a second for a corporate exhibit at Schick-Wilkinson sword corporate headquarters in Milford. The third winning project was for "City Story New Haven," which jurors cited for its "very intelligent urban design strategy" consisting of "a systematic way of treating different site conditions and an understanding of New Haven's history."
A fourth-generation Japanese-American, Sakamoto grew up in Honolulu. His great-grandfather emigrated to the Hawaiian islands in the late 1880s to work on sugar plantations.
He gave the first hint of his artistic ambitions as a child, drawing ships and planes on the back of blueprint rolls brought home by his father, a civil engineer.
"After high school I didn't know what to do," Sakamoto recalls. "I was good in sports and art classes." He wasn't so good in math, so when his father told him architects never needed to use math, he says, "I decided to try that."
Sakamoto attended the University of Oregon, graduating in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in architecture.
A work-study year abroad in England at the University of Liverpool sparked an interest in exhibitions.
"In Europe there are fewer chances to build, and architects take exhibitions very seriously," Sakamoto says. "That led me naturally to understand how architecture could be represented not just as buildings but as displays."
He has since honed his skills, mounting more than 50 exhibitions at the Yale University School of Architecture, where he currently teaches and serves as director of exhibitions.
Sakamoto earned his master of architecture degree in 1992 from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, an interdisciplinary school of art, architecture and design in Michigan.
Returning to Hawaii, he worked for several firms before opening his own. Sakamoto came to New Haven in 1996 for "advanced graduate studies" at Yale, where he earned a master's in environmental design.
As part of the program, he created an "interim sites" project to turn unutilized urban space into temporary public space. It was further exploration of work he had done in Hawaii, including an installation at the Honolulu Airport fabricated from balls, foam and other found objects.
His New Haven project, "The Progress Wall," assumed the form of an installation on the construction fence surrounding the former Jewish Community Center building on Chapel Street, which was being renovated for Yale's art school. The installation contained displays on JCC history, and allowed passersby to write their recollections of the building and views about the reconstruction on chalkboards.
"We actually collaborated with the [International] Festival of Arts & Ideas in 1998, and the first Citywide Open Studios [event]," Sakamoto says. He says that positive feedback from the project heightened his interest in the history of New Haven and "sort of cemented" his relationship with the city.
"The personal connections gave me the confidence to stay here and start a business in 1999," he says.
Sakamoto's work includes designs for exhibition spaces, hotels, restaurants, office spaces and residences.
"I design everything from furniture to buildings," he says.
Sakamoto received his first AIA/Connecticut Design Award in 2000, an honorable mention for the interior and exterior design of Hull's Art Supply & Framing store, in a vacant Chapel Street store that formerly housed a bicycle shop.
"He turned a vacant and derelict building...into an architectural statement," says owner Stephen H. Kovel. Sakamoto preserved the original brick-and-glass storefront, and transformed the interior into a brightly-lit area with hardwood floors and primary-colored siding.
"He enhanced the space and made customers want to come into it," Kovel says. The collaboration also resulted in Kovel offering Sakamoto office space upstairs in the building, which is across the street from Yale's School of Architecture.
Sakamoto's intense, hands-on approach has delighted city officials.
"He was more involved than a lot of architects we've worked with," says New Haven economic development officer Craig Russell, who oversees the façade improvement program. "Dean was very aggressive in getting involved with the program with a proposal for Miso restaurant," Russell says.
"What really impressed me was his eye for creating a unique design," says Russell. "That trellis (an arbor boundary of Asian wood and an integrated steel cable fence surrounding the outdoor seating) is amazing."
AIA jurors singled out Sakamoto's winning design for Miso for how it "evokes the character of Japanese architecture and is powerful in a minimum way."
City Plan director Karen Gilvarg sought out Sakamoto last April to work on a comprehensive program for public interaction with building sites in transition.
"He was the right person for the job," says Gilvarg. She recalls similar conversations with Sakamoto when he was a graduate student about the importance of public use of such spaces.
Mayor John DeStefano Jr. also has spoken with Sakamoto about ways to make building sites more appealing. In doing so he is following the lead of the late Mayor Richard C. Lee, who put up a temporary information and feedback structure at Church and Chapel streets, the location of the current Chapel Square Mall.
A preview of Sakamoto's plan currently is on display as a banner on the lower tier of the Temple Street Garage facing an open space that is the site of the former Edward Malley department store building. It may be Gateway Community College's future home, according to Gilvarg.
If there is sufficient city - and corporate - funding to fully implement the plan, changing banners on other levels will be a billboard for city events, and an a temporary visitors center will contain displays about the history and future of the site. Interactive columns will enable passerby to record their recollections and comments.
The program also involves the same kinds of installations on other color-coded sites in various stages of development, and invites community feedback with bright yellow postcards addressed to the city plan department and a "City Story New Haven" Web site.
"He has put together a concept for an extremely broad and far-reaching program," Gilvarg says, adding she's hoping for sufficient funding to "fill in the missing pieces."
Developers apparently have been slow to embrace the concept (and foot the bill for signs), but see its value as a marketing tool.
"We'd love to have a sponsor for the feedback program, which would enable us to mail out the postcards several times a year and put the results on the Web site," Gilvarg says.
As for working with Sakamoto, Gilvarg adds, "He's very creative and very responsive. You ask him to do something and he does it right away. He's also very good at using inexpensive materials and making them look like a million bucks.
"And, even though he hasn't been here very long, he seems to have a great appreciation for New Haven," she adds.
Robert Stern, dean of the Yale University School of Architecture says "architects who do public art are drawn to it by a sense of mission or responsibility."
He describes Sakamoto's public projects as "smart in their appearance and smart in ways to make the city seem more accessible to everyone.
"I don't think there's anybody else as good, or anybody else so actively engaged with the city," Stern says. He adds that Sakamoto's commitment to such projects also has helped the university.
"It's a plus for Yale, which of course has not had such a good relationship with the community, but in the last 10 years has been actively trying to be a good citizen," Stern says.
The tagline "Planning/Design for Real Places Over Time" is emblazoned on the business card for Dean Sakamoto Architects. He employs from two to five, depending on the project.
Sakamoto says he constantly is striving to find ways of merging public art with public space in his work, and integrating a sense of continuity between the past and present.
"My interest is in using history in a physical way, by performing an archeological excavation," he says. "Architects have that responsibility, to do that pathology and understand what preceded their project.
"I take it a step further and incorporate that into the project," he says.
Sakamoto delved deeply into two centuries of history for the Schick-Wilkinson Sword project, which involved designing and installing a permanent lobby exhibition in the Milford corporate headquarters. Using video screens, images and artifacts, the exhibit showcases the evolution of the modern razor.
AIA jurors liked "the seamless integration of the product display with the architecture."
The exhibition also won awards from the Associated General Contractors of Connecticut and the Association Building Contractors Inc.
The design team included Pelizza-Robinson of Orange, while Petra Construction Corp. was the general contractor.
During the 1950s and '60s, much of New Haven was razed to further Mayor Lee's vision of redevelopment. Some of the best architects of the time contributed to that vision. In the process, Sakamoto says, "What seemed to be a good idea at the time was not always consistent with how people wished to use the city. In some cases the designs were stunning in their abstraction but failed in terms of their relationship to the social life that is so important in a vital city."
Sakamoto hopes to make his mark with more humane architecture.
"My ambition is to grow the practice into work in the corporate and public realm," he says, adding he'd especially like to help corporations "communicate their public mission through their buildings and their spaces."
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