International Lecture Series: Yuki Ikeguchi

This lecture with Partner Architect and Executive Vice President at Kengo Kuma & Associates in Paris, Yuki Ikeguchi, is part of the ‘International Lecture Series’, in which the Royal Danish Academy – Architecture invites leading international figures for an afternoon focusing on key international themes in architecture.

Rooted in a deep sensitivity to nature, place, and human experience, KKAA's work seeks to create architecture that does not dominate its surroundings but instead becomes part of them. Drawing inspiration from local landscapes, climate, materials, and traditions, the studio has developed a distinctive approach to architecture that is both globally recognized and deeply site-specific.  

In this talk, Yuki Ikeguchi will explore how nature shapes the philosophy behind projects across the world from Japan to Scandinavia and beyond. Through examples from international projects, including H.C. Andersen’s House in Odense and the forthcoming Water Culture House in Copenhagen, she will highlight how architecture can create meaningful connections between people, materials, and the environments they inhabit.  

The conversation will also explore the shared values between Japan and the Nordic countries: a respect for craftsmanship, an appreciation of natural materials, and a belief that beauty emerges through simplicity, authenticity, and a close relationship with nature. 

Yuki Ikeguchi on working with architecture, nature and culture: 

“A word that represents our design method is Resonance. It is not by imposing a fixed design language, but by listening, re-interpretating, and recalibrating our approach.

The process that allows design to develop through dialogues between cultures, between expectations, between the building and its environment.

For the architecture to breathe and reacts to its natural environment one of our methods is to work with weaving outside and inside in seamless manner, and work with natural material in tectonic, porous manner. Our attempt is to create architecture that gives comfort and inspiration, but also connection to the outside.

It is important in the society today that we do not feel separated from the world around us.”

About Yuki Ikeguchi 

Yuki Ikeguchi is Partner Architect and Executive Vice President at Kengo Kuma & Associates Paris.
She has led major international projects with a particular focus on public and cultural buildings across Europe, including the upcoming Water Culture House in Copenhagen. 

At the core of her approach is biophilic design, an architecture that appeals to the senses and emerges through a close dialogue with its surroundings. Drawing on careful observation at both micro and macro scales, her work seeks to create meaningful connections between architecture, nature, culture, history, and the life that unfolds between buildings.  

About Kengo Kuma & Associates 

Kengo Kuma & Associates (KKAA) is an internationally acclaimed Japanese architecture practice founded in 1990 by architect Kengo Kuma. 

The studio is renowned for landmark projects including the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo, the award-winning V&A Dundee in Scotland, the Odunpazarı Modern Museum in Turkey, and the recently commissioned expansion of the National Gallery in London.