the "mechanized figurine" (on-going)

A Start to somewhere?

At the end of June 2025, I went on a 7 day trip to Osaka and it was my first time visiting Japan. Like most first-time visits, I found myself analyzing everything: the people, the streets, the buildings, the way the city feels at different times of day. But strangely, one of the things that stayed with me the most wasn’t a building—it was the vending machines (maybe because Ricky, my tourmate, always buys drinks from these machines).

They seemed to be everywhere, but not in the way I expected. I started noticing them in places that felt a bit off—tucked into narrow alleys, sitting between people's front yard, in-between buildings, or appearing in corners where you wouldn’t normally expect anything at all. At first it felt random, almost accidental, but the more I saw them, the more it started to feel intentional.

What also caught me off guard was what they were selling. Seeing alcoholic drinks in these completely open, unsupervised settings made me pause for a moment. It made me think about how different the assumptions around public space, trust, and everyday life might be.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of it yet, but it made me curious.  Somehow, these machines feel like more than just machines—they quietly shape how people move, stop, and interact with the city. In a way, they almost act like a kind of background architecture: always there, rarely noticed, but constantly in use.

So as someone who studies architecture and space me and my friend, Ricky started to talk about it casually, just a straightforward fun discussion that led somewhere interesting. This is just a starting point—more of an observation than a conclusion—but I’m interested in seeing where this line of thinking might go. So below are the series of conversations we had and I would like to document it and share it here, Im open to discussion or even feedback :)

March 28, 2026

EPISODE 01: Why here? (In conversation with Ricky Tzu-Chi CHIU)

J: What caught my attention at first was when we were walking back to our Airbnb and saw a vending machine placed right at a street intersection—almost at someone’s doorstep. It felt a bit strange. Why would it be placed there?

R: What I found interesting was that there were actually two identical machines side by side, but selling different things—one had regular drinks, and the other had alcoholic beverages.

R: And when we tried to buy beer at night, the machine said it was outside the “proper time.” So even though it’s a 24-hour vending machine, it doesn’t actually provide alcohol 24 hours a day. That’s kind of interesting—why limit that?

R: It made me think it might be a kind of societal safety measure. Even in minimarkets in Japan, you can’t buy alcohol through self-checkout—you have to go to the counter to verify your age. So maybe this is part of a larger system.

J: Yeah, that’s interesting. It makes me think of these machines as more than just machines—as a kind of reflection of the society they exist in. Almost like a “mechanized figurine” of a social system.

J: And depending on where they’re placed—inside a park, along a queue at a theme park, or even in front of someone’s house—they start to affect the space around them. Maybe even act as a kind of small, temporary placemaker.

R: That makes sense. Another thing is that these machines are constantly maintained through systems we don’t really see. Trucks come to refill them, collect money, and keep them running.

R: And they hold a lot of cash, which means there’s always a potential risk of theft. But the fact that they’re everywhere kind of shows a level of trust in the system—that the environment is safe enough for them to exist like this.

J: Right, and when I think about places like Europe, you don’t really see vending machines like this. It makes me wonder if it’s not just about infrastructure, but whether certain social systems are simply more compatible with them.

J: It’s interesting how these differences don’t just shape cities at a large scale, but also show up in small things like this.

R: Maybe we can look deeper into these aspects—and also see if there’s existing research that touches on this.

J: Yeah, I think there’s a lot to unpack. These machines might actually suggest new ways of thinking about small-scale architecture, or even how we approach public space and urban interventions.

~~~to be continued~~~

Question of thoughts?

1. Have you ever noticed something ordinary in a city that started to feel intentional the more you paid attention to it?

2. Do you think elements like vending machines can actually shape how we experience public space, even if we barely notice them?

3. What kinds of “background objects” exist in your city that might be quietly influencing everyday life?

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