Shun Kanda is an architect/urban designer currently teaching architectural design studios in the Master of Architecture program. He also directs the annual Japan Design Workshop, a summer program of design fieldwork investigating issues of Continuity/Transformation in Architecture & Community Form. Since 2004, he has initiated and conducts the Veneto Experience, an international workshop in Italy centered on learning from Venice and Carlo Scarpa. He is currently Director of Architectural Studies with the MIT Japan Program.
He has been at MIT since 1979 as an Associate Professor. Since 1985, as a Senior Lecturer in Architecture, he divides his time between teaching and professional practice. He is Principal of Kanda Associates, Architects, Inc., based in Cambridge and Tokyo. Kanda has also taught at the School of Design, North Carolina State University; Tokyo Institute of Technology; Tsukuba University; the International Laboratory for Urban Design in Siena, Italy and Keio University. He is the author of The Form of Neighborly Cluster (Sagami Shobo, Tokyo, 1990), a study of medium-density housing and neighborhood structure; Boston by Design (1991, Process No. 97); and other articles on architectural education, cross-cultural issues of design, and the morphology of cities. Kanda has an MArch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, a BArch from Case Western Reserve University, and has conducted post-graduate research in housing and urban design while with N. John Habraken at the Stichting Architecten Research in the Netherlands. He received his primary and secondary education in Japan. His recent projects have included the design of the Senior Center of Westborough, MA, a master plan for the Boston Higashi School, several housing projects for the Massachusetts Office of Communities and Development, and private residences. In Japan, current projects primarily include community and urban design consulting for the cities of Kanazawa, Osaka, Tokyo and other regional towns throughout Japan.