Since his first visit to Bangkok ten years ago, the first image of each of Toyo Ito's  lecture has been of the people living on the water's edge along the canal of Bangkok. As a distinctive place where human dwell successfully and naturally with the natural environment, Bangkok confirmed his notion of human has the primitive body which is a part of nature, that needs water, light and air. This becomes the substantial concept in his works up until now.
In the last decade of the 20th century, on one hand, Bangkok, similar to Toyo Ito's image, is still full of natural environment in the way of living naturally with nature.
On the other hand, Bangkok is not different from other metropolises, which are full of problems from the fruits of new technology. Whereas the air of Bangkok is saturated with water, unfortunately it is also intoxicated with pollution from cars and factories.
The destruction of natural resources, as well as traffic and garbage problems, are the result from people living together in this unlimited city.
The critical urban environment seems to be to the most challenging problem for Thai architects.
Especially with the high economic growth of last decade, the architecture business has become more revitalized and more competitive.
Bangkok became more and more modernized resulting from an advanced media technology and computer innovation which make the situation of overwhelming information spread out to every corner of the world.
Inevitably, life and architecture were changed by the new information at a very accelerated rate. Not only the number of buildings in Bangkok is tremendously increasing everyday, the number of architects in Thailand is growing as well.
Because of this, the architectural academic situation seems to be more and more active than ever.
Throughout 1996, Toyo Ito used Bangkok as a table of operation for his series of events with young Thai architects and students.
Probably the extreme juxtaposition of nature and technology in present Bangkok is the best example for an exploration.
The question of the new solutions for the next century, " Tomorrow Where Shall We Live? ", was the main theme of the series of events.
As the starting point of the events, the first lecture of Toyo Ito in Bangkok, " Architecture in the Electronic Age ", in January, was an introduction to the concept of living with the new technology, especially in the media or electronic environment. The role of architecture as an artificial or the second nature to integrate the relationship between man and nature was elaborated upon in the lecture.
In the following May, the open competition entitled " Tomorrow Where Shall We Live? " asked to reinvestigate the way of living in Bangkok as in Toyo Ito's Message for the 21st century :  " As we are approaching  the 21ts century, let us employ a global view point , and reconsider the mutual relationship between nature and technology.
How will our living environment be?" , called for the innovative solutions from young blood of Thailand.  6 student projects and 6 young architect projects were selected to be  in Tomorrow Where Shall We Live Workshop to develop their concept to installation.
Through the process of workshop during 6 months with the cooperation of Toyo Ito and Bangkok organizers via the advanced communication technology between the two cities, every participant experienced one of the most challenging endeavors in his life.
Even some proposals are almost impossible to create realistically, with limited time and budget, finally, every idea was built to physical exhibition by the end of last November at Chulalongkorn University.
Almost every corner of faculty of Architecture buildings was invaded and transformed to be the model of tomorrow.
The efforts to answer the question of Toyo Ito, Tomorrow Where Shall We Live?, seem to focus especially on the media and communication technology according to his lecture and message.
However, the most interesting point in this event is how to formulate the message of the future with the specific context: Bangkok, the opposition of nature and technology. From the imagination of participants to a time they have never reached, an urban approach is used in ' Blowing in the Winds ', " Penthouse SALA in the Forest City " and " Express Way Module House ". They imagine Bangkok urban space in the future as a product of the present development such as left over space between buildings, under express way structure or the roofs top of high rise buildings.
The solutions result from using media as an additive dimension compensating the loss of pleasant space. Particularly in ' Blowing in the Winds ', the flow of winds and media is an important characteristic to generate living space according to their similar nature.
At the same time,  Experiment in Ripple space ", " Future Resident System ",  " Share Time ", " Envelope "and  " Virtuosoic Evolution " predict the new social conditions and use architecture as a response to the new social systems.
For example, the problem of various individuality would be solved by the ' compromise situation ' of 'Ripple Space', prefabricate and flexible resident system with fabric enclosure would be the solution for the time-strict problem. 
" Exposed Living " and " Naked House " focus on the loss of tangible dimension of human by extreme use of media and computer technology.
The answer to the problem is the exaggeration of exposed connection of humans to nature balancing humans to media.
The last group seems to answer the question of tomorrow by more abstract installations with the idea from Buddhist philosophy. 
" Wel Come Home " expresses the journey of our life through time that finally end up with death, use the space of labyrinth as an analogy of the journey.
" Untitled 1996 " which is the full multi-media installation, approaches living space as the mass of energy of four basic elements combining to be emptiness.  While ' light ' in architecture space represents enlightenment, the infinite for the future.

Almost all of the installations propose to visualize their ideal space form the imagination.
They produce direct experiences to the audiences through the model space and inadvertently architecture form itself seems to be less important.
As the nature of invisible media, architecture with minimal form but maximum effect would be the answer for our tomorrow.
Moreover, it comes close to the idea of 'BA' in Japanese architecture of Toyo Ito.

Toyo Ito was not only the theme producer and judge of competition, he also participated in the events with his installation themed " Tarzans in the Forest of Media ".
The idea of ' media cladding ' which is light and flexible and protects us and controls the profuse flood of information was represented in the exhibition by model of the interior space of his project, Sendai Mediatheque.
If Tarzan who lives and adapts himself successfully with natural environment of the forest, feels and senses the being of nature; water, light and winds, then the 21th Century Tarzans who live in the media environment should allow to feel the electronic flow as well as the natural flow in the media suit.

Even though the series of events are only little points among the global movement, they were the big influence and encouragement for students and young architects of Thailand.
They did not only rethink about their environment but also experienced the transforming process of imagination to tectonic built form which is the most challenging problem for being architect.
Especially for a young architect, to learn how to build, to see the dream come true, even in very small scale are the big influence to his life. As a result, although the installations are not able to compare to the professional or the international level, the high energy and intention of the young were overwhelming all over the exhibition.
Hopefully, at least for the participants, the experience from the cultural exchange workshop would be the starting point to create a compatible environment in their own context.
For Toyo Ito, to see and perceive Bangkok in these current faces would not be only the validity to his idea of integrated living with both natural and electronic environments, but would be another inspiration for his architecture in the future.
Recently, the additive images in his lecture
become people in watery space along the canal of Bangkok with a cellular phone.

(abstract from: "Tomorrow Where Shall We Live?" - a+u, novermber 1997)