Session 1

CONVERGENT KNOWLEDGE:

SENSES, EMOTIONS, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND BEYOND

Convergence: what role design should play?

Francesco Zurlo

Department of Design, Politecnico of Milan - ITALY

May design act as connector, facilitator, integrator, translator among and across disciplines? The nature of design is compatible with these approaches and, as a consequence, it supports, innately, convergence. So, yes: DESIGN does it. The presentation aims to show how design is facing complex challenges in the era of data and complexity, working as trigger for innovation. Through a set of tensions, we’ll see the future of design on its relationship with disciplines and other knowledge domains.

Consilience Design

Kazuo Kawasaki

Ouzak Design, Osaka University - video

The definition of “consilience design” is, plainly speaking, to “interdisciplinarize” thefusion, combination, and integration of scientific nature and artistic nature in arts and the sciences. The target of consilience design is to solve problems and crises utilizing new designing language and designed language created through interdisciplinarized education and research. The original concept of consilience was only the “fusion” of arts and sciences; however, consilience design specifically means interdisciplinarization through the combination and integration of the science and art in arts and the sciences.

コンシリエンスデザイン

「コンシリエンスデザイン」の定義は、簡単に言えば、芸術と科学におけ る科学的性質と芸術的性質の融合、組み合わせ、統合を「学際的にする」 ことです。 コンシリエンスデザインの目標は、新しいデザイン言語と学際 的な教育と研究を通じて生み出されたデザイン言語を利用して問題と危機 を解決することです。 コンシリエンスの元来の概念は芸術と科学の「融 合」のみでした。 しかし、コンシリエンスデザインとは、特に芸術と科学 における科学と芸術の結合と統合による学際的な統合を意味します。

The Integration of Diversity

Kengo Kuma

Kengo Kuma and Associates, The University of Tokyo - video

I teach architecture at university and I think that this is the most unique feature of architecture how to integrate various technologies, people, and materials. I would like to tell students more about how to integrate very small to very large things and technologies, rather than how to design beautiful shapes. I think with students how to integrate various kinds of technology, various kinds of material and I want to teach them. For this reason, I often create something like a pavilion with students. These pavilions are created not only in Japan but also in foreign countries with overseas students by being invited to foreign museums and events. This activity has allowed us to understand technologies that each country is good at, and not good at, or the people skills from that country, because this activity represent an interesting technological exchange. We do not teach architecture on paper, but we have to conduct architectural education while actually using materials and moving our hands. Especially I feel the great potential of the future of architecture.

多様性のインテグレーション

僕は建築を大学で教えてますが建築というのは、すごくいろんな技術や人間、あるいはいろんな物質を統合して、そしてそれをどういう風にインテグレートするかとういうのが建築の一番、他のものにない面白い特徴を思っていて、本当に小さいものから大きいもの、小さい技術から大きい技術を統合するのはどうしたら良いかということを一番学生に伝えたいと思っています。どういうふうに美しいカタチをデザインするかではなく、どういうふうに多種類の技術と多種類の物質というものを統合するかとうことを学生と一緒に考えたいし教えたいと思っています。そのためにパビリオンみたいなものを一緒に作るということをたくさんやっています。パビリオンは日本で作るだけではなく、海外の美術館から招かれたり、イベントに招かれたりとかすることで海外の学生とも一緒に作るということをやっていて、それぞれの国の得意な技術や、不得意な技術、あるいはその国の人間に得意な技などをわかるようになってきました。これはある意味面白い技術交流場所にもなっていることからも、私たちは建築教育を行う上でいかに紙の上でものを教えるのではなく、物質を使って実際に手を動かしながら建築学をするということに今後の建築学の大きな可能性を感じています。

Convergent Future Technology: Learning from Senses and Intelligence of Insects

Ryohei Kanzaki

RCAST - The University of Tokyo

Session 2

LIVING CONVERGENCE:

VOICES FROM PRACTICES

Design's extensibility and convergence

Setsu°* & Shinobu* Ito

°*Studio Ito Design, °RCAST The University of Tokyo, *Tama Art University

We design from small to large, various typology of things with various materials, manufacturing methods and technologies. The design development work starts with the first design idea and repeats the expansion and convergence combining various experts' knowledges and experiences. In this workshop, I will talk about three of our many design development experiences, such as Material issues: process and innovation, Post natural materials design, Lesson learned and sustainable future. Experiments are essential to design. Various factors are added, mixed, removed, converged, and put together again, and experiment is being conducted every day to finally produce one optimal problem solution. The real Design must always create something new. What already exists, it is useless that someone has already done. We are constantly in conflict.

デザインがもつ拡張性と収束性

私たちは小さいものから大きいもの、様々なタイポロジーのものを、様々な素材と製法、技術でデザインしています。

デザイン開発の仕事は最初のデザインアイディアから始まって様々な専門家の知識と経験を合わせて拡大と収束を繰り返します。

今回のワークショップでは、私たちの数多くのデザイン開発の経験の中から、マテリアルの問題: プロセスとイノベーション、ポスト天然素材のデザイン、サスティナブルデザインの実験と試み、という3つのトピックについてお話しします。

デザインに実験は不可欠です。色々な要素を加味し、混ぜ合わせ、取り除き収束させ、再び合わせて、最終的に一つの最適な問題解決を生み出そうと日々実験しています。

本当のデザインは常に新しいものを生み出さなければいけません。すでに存在するもの、すでに誰かがやったことではダメなのです。私たちは日々葛藤を繰り返しています。

Fostering Innovation

Vincenzo Iavicoli

The College for Creative Studies in Detroit - USA

The drastic impact of technology creates a complexity that requires interpretations that is too complex to be addressed by one single discipline. It is necessary to develop groundbreaking methodologies to continuously promote a culture of innovation. The ramification of this complex topic makes it of vital importance to establish integrated systems, where disciplines and expertise blend to deal with complex problems. At the College for Creatives Studies, we strive to keep up to date with the latest creative configurations. After years of experiences, exploring several settings, we are now launching the City of Design Research Lab, a cross-disciplinary institute that will unify discipline and expertise to address wide-ranging topics. Detroit is the capital of the car industry, head-quarter for Ford, General Motors and Fiat-Chrysler. Reinvigorated by the designation of the UNESCO City of Design, the lab will launch with the research activity “the Future of Mobility”, a priority for the city capital of the car industry.

Circle, with future inside

Domenico Guzzini

Guzzini - ITALY

Fratelli Guzzini was established in 1912, based on the handcrafting of ox horn items. The company owes its current success to an extraordinary intuition: in 1938 - amid years marked by a strong tradition-based culture – Guzzini introduced the use of Plexiglas in making everyday household articles. Some of the leading names in the world of international design chose to work together with Guzzini for its ability to make simple items in an extraordinary way by combining functionality with a stylish design. The aesthetical and functional research, experimenting innovative and wisely combined materials, able to anticipate the variable demands of consumers, render the company one of the worldwide symbols of “Made in Italy”.

Designing Time

Mario Trimarchi

Fragile, NABA_Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milano - ITALY

Samotracia

Design Mario Trimarchi for De Castelli

The motorcycle designed by Mario Trimarchi for De Castelli embodies reflections on the aesthetic of movement. The design follows the forms of the body on the bike, conveying a sense of the physical and mental excitement of driving at high speeds. The typical aerodynamic curves are set aside, and the fairing is segmented as in the logic of time-lapse photography, like a visual interpretation of speed. Over time, with the natural oxidation of the copper, the object is aligned with the time of the city, experienced in an eternally contemporary condition.

“For some time now I have been working on how to design speed,” says Mario Trimarchi. “I have combined this obsession with a fixation on the passage of time, which I think is one of the major themes of our relationship with objects. The result is a motorcycle that seems to move on its own, as if it were the result of a sequence of photo frames, somewhat Cubist, in a way, but also seductive and coppery, like the skin of a beautiful woman.”

Session 3

CONVERGENCE AT WORK

"La meccanica delle Emozioni"

Heart inside Engine, Beauty inside Metal

Tiziana Alamprese

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Japan

The choice of purchasing a car - for example, a red Alfa Romeo- instead of another model, is the result of complex chemistry’s secrets that every marketer struggles to grasp, deep-diving inside data, KPIs, researches… My story is about getting closer to the hearts of the Japanese users, transforming marketing into love-ting and let the emotions drive our cars, let our users to experience our Brands with all their senses. And feel love.

Beyond Time: Transforming Data Into Emotion​

Tetsuro Kanegae

Creative Division, Shiseido Co., Ltd. - JAPAN

What if you could go beyond the wall of time with your loved one, a close friend, or family? BEYOND TIME is a digital time-travel experience that lets people see and talk to each other at various stages of their lives. Our project team developed this installation based on 100 years of Shiseido's extensive scientific research on aging. Our theme is ‘communication.’ How people look at different points in time; how one’s age relates to one's mindset, and how the experience can help people feel and see themselves in ways they never could before. Science and art, design and technology, data and emotion –– here, they mix, merge, and harmonize to let participants explore a new appreciation for each other.

大切な誰かと。仲のいい友人と。かけがえのない親子で。もし、いっしょに時間の壁を超える体験ができたら。BEYOND TIMEは時間を操り、２人で年齢を自由に選ぶことができる3Dリアルタイムデジタルタイムマシーンです。長年にわたりエイジングサイエンスを研究してきた資生堂が、人の顔立ちにおける年齢の変化、時間と人の意識がどのような関わりを持っているかを研究するために開発しました。時間を共有してきた二人が時間の壁を越えたとき、そこで何を感じるか。一緒に体験した相手へのパーセプションはどう変化するのかなど「コミュニケーション」が重要なテーマとなっています。

サイエンスとアート。デザインとテクノロジー。データとエモーション。すべてが溶け合って、体験者に新しい感情を生み出しました。

Your second life from the view point of the convergence

Tomoo Matsuda

Mitsubishi Research Institute, Tokyo - JAPAN

What is your dream or plan after your retirement which means your second half of your life and career? With an aging rate of 28% (population aged 65 of older), Japan is facing the super aging society. The 100-Year Life and the Life Shift are the hot issues these days. Some cases and the best practices of the elderly in their second life would be introduced in this presentation. These cases would be helpful to design your next chapter of life and career and suggest the view point of the convergence including the cross-disciplinary approach with the social participation, life-long education, interaction among the generations and IoT.

Human-robot emotional interaction

Sarah Cosentino

Graduate School of Creative Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo - JAPAN

With the advent of assistive robots, robots designed to assist users in daily activities, emotional interaction is gaining particular importance in the field of "natural" interfaces and communication methods. But why is the possibility of understanding the emotional state of the human partner vital for a robot? Human communication takes place in parallel on two channels, the cognitive and the emotional. If on the cognitive level, exchanges are direct, they are not necessarily unequivocally clear. Emotional communication complements and completes these exchanges to give a clearer picture of the situation in its context. Furthermore, knowing how to arouse positive emotions in others is a crucial factor for the establishment of a good interpersonal or interperson-robot relationship. The possibility of understanding and knowing how to cope correctly with different emotional states will give robots an extra gear to become part of the human social sphere, making communications more natural, spontaneous, and possibly clarifying any situations of ambiguity.