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A systemic design approach to drink spiking prevention 2026 January 〜 March Collaborator: Goda Lab (UTokyo), UNIST (South Korea) Drink spiking is a widespread problem in nightlife environments — yet it remains chronically underreported and poorly understood. Existing prevention strategies largely rely on individual vigilance: personal testing kits, behavioral advice, and detection tools that place the burden of safety squarely on potential victims. Safe All Night is a systemic design project that challenges this assumption. The project began as a collaboration between the UTokyo DLX Design Lab and the Department of Design at UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology), emerging from a Treasure Hunting workshop in which designers and scientists explored applications for SERS (Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy) sensor technology developed at Goda Lab, UTokyo. The initial research question was straightforward: could Raman spectroscopy reliably detect a spiked drink? Three rounds of laboratory testing - conducted across multiple labs and devices - revealed both potential and fundamental limitations. While statistically significant spectral differences were detected under controlled conditions, results proved inconsistent across beverage types, substance concentrations, and equipment sensitivities. What works in a laboratory does not automatically translate to a crowded nightclub. Rather than treating this as a failure, the project reframed it as a finding: drink spiking is not only a detection problem, but a structural vulnerability embedded in nightlife culture. This led to a deliberate pivot - away from technological detection and toward infrastructural redesign. Safe All Night proposes a venue-embedded safety system operating across three layers. An awareness campaign addresses the common misconception that spiking effects are indistinguishable from alcohol intoxication, using reflective prompts at key moments before and during the night. Physical drink covers - provided with every drink as a default - create a non-stigmatizing barrier to opportunistic tampering. And parallel reporting pathways, connecting guests to trained staff or a digital reporting bot through familiar messaging platforms, reduce the procedural friction that currently prevents most incidents from ever being reported. The outcome is not a product but a coordinated ecosystem - one that redistributes responsibility from individuals to venues, staff, and the broader nightlife infrastructure. Safe All Night was supported by the Toshiaki Ogasawara Foundation. UTokyo DLX: Federico Trucchia, Max Fischer UNIST: Juhyun Nam, Minju Park Laboratory testing of several drinks with handheld spectrometer. Safety pack including info material and protective drink covers with reporting function as shown below. #prototype #health_and_wellbeing #service

What did a four-month collaboration between DLX Design Lab and As Partners reveal about loneliness, technology in the care industry, and the challenges of building meaningful industry–academia partnerships? "When I moved here, I decided to cut ties with my university friends." "I gave up all my hobbies." These were among the things residents shared with the DLX team during field research inside As Partners' elderly care facilities. What emerged through the research was a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of these residents, and how loneliness can develop not only through physical isolation but also through loss of relationships, routines, and independence. Project Collins began as a four-month collaborative design exploration (January to April 2025) between DLX Design Lab at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Industrial Science and As Partners, an operator of more than 25 elderly care facilities across the Tokyo metropolitan area. With loneliness becoming an increasingly urgent challenge in Japan's aging society, the team set out to explore how design might foster joy, connection, and meaning within elderly care communities. The resulting concepts ranged from hydration spaces that double as community hubs to biosensors that gently tune into residents' emotional states. Using a future-oriented design approach, the project highlighted new areas of opportunity that balanced creative exploration with the everyday realities of care. One year after the project concluded, Professor Miles Pennington from the DLX Design Lab and As Partners President & CEO Kenji Uemura sat down to talk through what the work brought to light. The following are a few of the topics that were discussed during the interview. Professor Miles Pennington (left) and President & CEO Kenji Uemura (right) Loneliness and Elderly Care It's a topic that touches almost everyone eventually, in one way or another. Miles Pennington: Loneliness is a topic close to home. My mother is in a nursing home in the UK. I remember the hardest part of moving her into a nursing care home was taking her away from her friends and the place she knew. She was so lonely there. For many months, she was packing her bags every day and wanting to go home. Kenji Uemura: Previously in Japan, senior residential options were not really described as "homes," they were more like facilities or hospitals. These places often offer recreation for the residents, but they can often feel like kindergarten activities and I often saw the boredom on the residents faces. I realized that each resident has their own desires of how they want to live their lives, and I wanted to help each of them live a life they could enjoy. Technology in the Care Industry Technology can take on a lot, but not the most human parts of care. Uemura: For about eight years, we have been working to improve care quality and efficiency through utilising technology, and we aim to expand these innovations across the industry. With Japan's population aging and its workforce shrinking, the key to solving these challenges is productivity improvement, with technology at the core of that transformation. But while technology might be able to cover a significant portion of the caregiving role, the so-called "three major care tasks" - toileting, bathing, and eating - remain challenging. These forms of assistance also involve emotionally sensitive interactions and can also be important opportunities to notice changes in a person's physical condition. For that reason, I believe there will ultimately still need to be human involvement in basic care giving. Pennington: Technology should be able to help. Right now, we're going through a revolution in AI and robotics, and these things could have massive impact. But at the same time, it's a very human-centered problem. Caregiving is care-giving; care is the important point. It's human to human, so technology alone can't necessarily solve it. We need to think how human-centered technology applications can create solutions. Industry-Academia Collaboration The most important work happens before the project begins: aligning goals and expectations. Pennington: There is often a gap in understanding between the university and the public, but there are many ways of bridging that gap - for example: communicating research to the public in interesting ways so they can understand it, involving the public in research activities, changing research into real-world products or services, or allowing researchers to think about their research and their impact on society. Of course, part of "society" are companies and enterprises. So another thing we do at DLX is to connect enterprises with the research of the university. Uemura: For companies, the number one value of teaming up with a university is knowledge. While the goal for research is often publishing papers, I think there is value in companies collaborating while the research is still ongoing to think about how we can bring it to the public through products or services. Pennington: Places like DLX Design Lab can act as a bridge between research and society, university and company. When thinking about industry-academia collaborations, I think one of the most important points is to understand the difference of time scales. University research is always exploring the forefront of knowledge; an academic’s goal is to find new knowledge to expand our understanding of the world, and that can take time. But for companies, timeframes are usually shorter. They want to create business opportunities in the near-term. So sometimes, there is a disconnect between business and researchers, and it takes time to create mutual understanding of these different needs and objectives. And we often use design to communicate and enable this understanding. Uemura: I think it's important that we have an aligned timeline and purpose. Without that, companies can't really take any action. It doesn't need to be completely figured out, and there will be trial and error, but having an aligned vision I think would allow not just one company, but multiple companies to come together at an industry or even societal scale. Pennington: I think the kind of framework that enables companies and universities to work together effectively has to be built over the long term. It's a different kind of R&D to commercial R&D, where you have a clear goal to achieve. It's not high-speed projects that quickly become profit making, it's a longer-term relationship that allows joint exploration. Uemura: I agree; often as a company we can't be doing pure R&D that lasts for a long time. That's why if you can get industry and academia to come together with a unified goal, it is a very powerful tool. 2026/6/26 Miles Pennington Professor, The University of Tokyo Professor Miles Pennington specializes in design-led innovation and serves as Director of the DLX Design Lab. After holding positions as Professor and Head of Department at the Royal College of Art in the UK, he joined the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo as a Professor in 2017 and also serves as Special Advisor to the President of the University of Tokyo. Kenji Uemura President & CEO, As Partners CO.,LTD. Kenji Uemura leads both the senior care business, centered on assisted living facilities, and the real estate business, driving digital transformation in the care industry through IoT systems such as EGAO link®. After working in housing development and management at Recruit Cosmos and Takara Komuten, he founded AS Partners in 2004. He also serves as Vice Representative Director of the Japan Association of Paid Nursing Homes. Related Press Releases PR Times, 2026/6/26 University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science, 2026/6/30

Coral Rescue — a citizen participatory coral conservation project led by DLX Design Lab at the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo — has been selected as a Notable at the Core77 Design Awards 2026. The project was previously recognised by the Wired Japan Creative Hack Award (Grand Prix, 2023), Re:Design Everything, and D&AD — all at a conceptual stage. This Core77 recognition reflects the full arc of the project, including its real-world implementation, which was also featured on NHK World. This project took years of work to bring to life. Being chosen by a jury of internationally acclaimed innovators means a great deal to our entire team. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has been part of this journey. An upcoming workshop in Amami Oshima is planned for later this year https://designawards.core77.com/Design-for-Social-Impact/142261/Coral-Rescue-Conserve-Together?fbclid=IwY2xjawSe_31leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeHYJ03kNTaJEEkRrhEYI0Ray_oqPT3CR6lQ5DEHqWWsvIRX890nLJl_71Zg8_aem_tCfJjY1Y2w_hXrIKw2y2UA
Project website
https://coralrescue.wixsite.com/coral-rescue

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Credits Creative Core Team Cretive Director: Tomomi Sayuda (DLX Design Lab, UTokyo)
Design Engineer: Hemal Diaz (DLX Design Lab, UTokyo)
Product Designer: Shota Kiuchi (DLX Design Lab, UTokyo) Scientific Collaborators Toh Tai Chong & Sam Shu Qin (TMSI, National University of Singapore) Nastassja Lewinski (Virginia Commonwealth University) Nina Yasuda (The University of Tokyo) Masako Nakamura (Tokai University) Local Ocean Advisor Kazuya Asakura (Hirasawa Marine Centre) Software Engineer Isamu Sakamoto #CoralRescue #Core77DesignAward #DLXDesignLab #UTokyo #CoralConservation #CitizenScience #MarineConservation #DesignResearch #サンゴ保全 #市民科学

We had two master's students graduate this spring, both of the Emerging Design and Informatics course at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies (GSII), The University of Tokyo, class of 2026. Below are their graduation projects, which explore the bridge between design thinking and emerging technologies. Design Exploration of Camera Monitoring to Foster Trust in Elderly Care Facilities Darey-Ann Louisville This research investigates how the design of camera monitoring systems can be redesigned to foster trust and emotional support for residents in care facilities. It began with a collaborative meeting with an elder care facility in Tokyo, focused on residents’ comfort and the role of new technologies in supporting caregivers. One key insight was the aversion toward camera monitoring among residents and staff, which led to the research question: "In the context of elderly care, can the acceptance of camera monitoring significantly improve from the current state?" The project explores a perceptual and emotional shift toward acceptance by reconsidering the form and interaction of monitoring systems. The aim is to understand how these technologies are experienced in daily life, and whether they can be designed to support both resident well-being and caregiving practices. An acceptance spectrum, ranging from rejection to preference and trust, was defined to frame how people relate to monitoring technologies. Through ideation, workshops, and visits to care facilities, the project examined how the form and interaction of monitoring cameras influence feelings of safety and trust. Acceptance spectrum, ranging from rejection to preference and trust Using a Research through Design methodology with a mixed-methods, participatory approach, the project progressed through four iterative phases: literature review, user engagement, prototyping, and analysis. Data collection included a perception workshop, a custom "Friendshapes" application to study visual attributes associated with safety and trust, and in-person interviews with residents and staff at elder care facilities by San Ikukai and AS Partners. The design process produced three interaction categories: nurture, reflect, and connect, with two low-fidelity prototypes. The first is a plush companion evoking nurturing responses alongside employing its surveillance functions, and the second is an assistant bot, which offers personal health insights to support user agency. Interviews revealed a “privacy-for-benefit” trade-off, where acceptance increases when monitoring provides direct value. Ultimately, this research positions the discomfort of surveillance as a design challenge rather than solely an inherent technological limitation. By rethinking the physical form and the interactive relationship between the device and the resident, surveillance can be transformed into an ethically aware, supportive service. This study contributes a design framework and a set of principles to guide the development of future monitoring technologies that prioritize human dignity and long-term well-being. Shared Pain: Designing Tools for Communicating and Understanding Pain Mariko Masuzawa This research is grounded in the recognition that, although pain is a physiologically universal phenomenon, it remains extremely difficult to communicate to others, creating significant challenges in both clinical decision-making and everyday human relationships. While advanced technologies such as AI and sensing systems are increasingly integrated into healthcare, they face inherent limitations in capturing the subjective and context-dependent nuances of pain as mere data. Within the context of Japan’s aging society and the growing shortage of healthcare resources, this research highlights the need for personalized medicine that respects individual subjective experiences. In response, this research poses the following question: How might we create tools that facilitate a common understanding of pain? Rather than treating pain communication as a one-way transmission of information, this research reframes it as a relational process between a Pain Expresser (Sender) and a Pain Receiver. Pain is thus conceptualized as “experiential information” that requires mediation, expression, and interpretation. Within this framework, the concept of “asymmetry of empathy” is introduced, referring to the gap between the sender’s feeling of being understood and the receiver’s effort to understand, which do not necessarily align. Adopting a Research through Design methodology, this research followed an iterative process involving exploratory ideation, the classification of five modes of expression, and the development of interactive communication tools. In the initial phase, a survey of 100 participants was conducted to explore diverse contexts of pain sharing. The findings revealed that pain is more often shared within “caring relationships,” such as family and friends, rather than exclusively in clinical settings. This was followed by workshops that examined how individuals externalize pain through abstract visual and tactile elements. Further investigations, including perception studies on materials and shapes, identified key attributes—such as asymmetry, high visual density, and structural instability—that intuitively evoke pain or psychological discomfort. Based on these insights, five modes of pain expression were defined: Exaggerate, Analogize, Compare, Record, and Express. During the prototyping phase, multiple communication tools were developed and iteratively refined. The final design outcome is a chat-based interface that visualizes the quality of interaction between users. In this system, the degree of empathy in conversations is estimated using AI and represented visually, allowing users to perceive changes in their relational dynamics. Additionally, context-sensitive interactions are introduced within the conversation to encourage deeper engagement and reflection on pain. User testing, including participants in their 90s, suggests that the familiarity of a chat-based interface combined with elements of playfulness creates “mental space” within serious caregiving contexts, making difficult conversations more approachable. Ultimately, this research does not attempt to resolve the inherent impossibility of fully sharing pain. Instead, it positions design as a mediator that enables more accessible empathetic engagement and contributes to the sustainability of healthcare practices.

The first cohort of the high school design innovation program Mirai Designers by DLX successfully concluded on February 28, 2026. With the support of the Mitsubishi Memorial Foundation for Educational Excellence, 24 high school students learned about design, innovation, and prototyping over a five-month period from October 2025 to February 2026. <Program Overview> Mirai Designers by DLX is a design innovation education program for high school students who want to design a better future. Offered by the DLX Design Lab at the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, the program provides hands-on learning in design-led innovation, integrating science, technology, and human-centered perspectives. Through learning design thinking and prototyping, students research people’s needs and societal challenges, and work in teams to bring their ideas to life. If you would like to see a full report, check out the blog post on the DLX Design Academy website. If you have any questions about the program, feel free to contact us at the email below. mirai-designers@designlab.ac <Acknowledgements> We are deeply grateful to the Mitsubishi Memorial Foundation for Educational Excellence for their support, which made it possible to provide this valuable learning opportunity to the students. This program was also made possible through the support and guidance of the University of Tokyo Next Generation Development Office, to whom we extend our sincere thanks.

Tracing the journeys of water in the air across borders June 2025 - ongoing In collaboration with: Yoshimura Lab Moisture Commons visualizes how atmospheric moisture travels across borders to shape our weather. By tracing water vapor from distant oceans and lands to local rainfall, it reveals the deep interconnectedness between global climate systems and regional weather patterns. Developed in collaboration with the Yoshimura Lab, IIS, UTokyo, the project translates atmospheric moisture pathways reconstructed from climate simulations into an intuitive visualization that deepens awareness of our shared atmospheric commons and highlights the need for collective climate action. #Ecology_Environment_Sustainability #Prototype #Treasure_Hunting

Example of a concept sketch of an at-home biosensor to monitor residents’ emotions Addressing Loneliness in Elderly Care Centers January 2025 - April 2025 In collaboration with: AS PARTNERS Co., Ltd. (https://www.as-partners.co.jp/) Loneliness is one of the quietest yet most urgent challenges in the world’s rapidly aging societies. People particularly at risk are those in socially and economically vulnerable positions, such as those who are unmarried or divorced, in poor health, have low household incomes, or have limited social connections.1 Furthermore, a 2024 survey found that approximately 40% of respondents reported experiencing feelings of loneliness.2 In Japan, where one in three people will be over 65 by 2040,3 we ask: how can design spark joy and connection inside elderly care facilities? Conducted with elderly care facilities operator, AS PARTNERS, and multiple research labs at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo, Project Collins set out to explore this loneliness and the future of care in our aging society. 1 https://www.cao.go.jp/kodoku_koritsu/torikumi/zenkokuchousa/r6/pdf/tyosakekka_point.pdf 2 https://www.cao.go.jp/kodoku_koritsu/torikumi/zenkokuchousa/r5/pdf/kosatsu_r5.pdf 3 https://www8.cao.go.jp/kourei/whitepaper/w-2025/zenbun/pdf/1s1s_01.pdf Background and Inspiration As Japan’s population ages, the question of how older adults experience daily life and connection is no longer distant, but one that will soon touch every household. AS PARTNERS operates more than 25 elderly care facilities in the Tokyo metropolitan area and confronts these challenges every day, making them an ideal partner in this work. Together, we aimed to explore new approaches to address loneliness in elderly care facilities, with a particular focus on future scenarios in the year 2040. Using a futures-oriented design approach allowed the team to look beyond immediate challenges and imagine long-term possibilities, ensuring today’s ideas could remain relevant and adaptable for the care environments of tomorrow. AS PARTNERS' elderly care facility, Asheim Jingu no Mori Research and Process Through on-site field research in care facilities and close exchanges with residents and staff, the DLX Design Lab team gathered valuable insights about loneliness, challenges in an aging population, and daily life in a care home. This helped us better understand their lived experience. One resident explained that moving in meant making difficult sacrifices: “When I moved here, I decided to cut ties with my university friends.” “I gave up all my hobbies.” Another spoke of the guilt she felt in everyday life: “I feel bad asking staff for even small things, like going for a walk.” These voices, and others, revealed how entering a care facility often involves not only physical relocation, but also the loss of relationships, routines, and independence. Reducing isolation, we also learned, is not only about companionship, but also about unlocking richer daily experiences, improving mental and physical health, and restoring dignity and belonging. Following these exchanges and gathered insights, AS PARTNERS, DLX Design Lab members, and University of Tokyo researchers came together in an ideation workshop. It became a rare moment of collective imagination, where diverse perspectives were shared openly and new possibilities for trust, dignity, and connection began to take shape. collaborative ideation workshop with AS PARTNERS staff, DLX designers, and University of Tokyo researchers Final Concepts The ideas that were generated during the ideation workshop were synthesized into five concepts and shared back with top management at AS PARTNERS. The ideas ranged from lighthearted playful games that spark spontaneous laughter to scientific biosensors that gently tune into residents’ emotional states. This work brought together partners from various lived experiences all focusing on a design futures challenge. Through it, much was learned including that designing with elderly care facilities requires balancing creative exploration with the everyday realities of care. We also learned that genuine collaboration across residents, staff, and researchers is what gives the concepts both practicality and heart. This work challenged us to reimagine elderly care not as a place of gradual decline, but as a community of seniors enjoying connection, dignity, and growth. Because of the futures design oriented approach that was taken in this work, Project Collins is a small but impactful step towards addressing loneliness in elderly care centers not just for today, but for tomorrow. Press Releases PR Times, 2025/12/10 University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science, 2025/12/10 PR Times, 2026/6/26 University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science, 2026/6/30 #Health_and_Wellbeing #Concept

Rapid prototype of a section of the IWCD Designing for the frontiers of physics May 2024 - ongoing In collaboration with: Kavli IPMU IWCD Prototyping is a collaboration with Kavli IPMU (Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe) to design human-centered, cost-effective solutions for the Intermediate Water Cherenkov Detector (IWCD), a part of the Hyper Kamiokande project, with the goal of researching neutrinos in order to understand the origins of the universe. Project Background Neutrinos are considered to be the “smallest unit of matter,” and scientists believe that they might hold the key to understanding the universe. The Kamiokande series, created by Dr. Masatoshi Koshiba, was originally made in order to research proton decay, but was modified later to focus on neutrino detection. Using the original Kamiokande, Dr. Koshiba and his team became the first people to observe neutrinos emitted from a supernova explosion, a feat which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002. Its successor, Super-Kamiokande, went on to support more Nobel Prize-winning research when they were able to demonstrate neutrino oscillations. Now, set to start operation in 2028, Hyper-Kamiokande is being created in order to further research neutrinos. Inside the Super Kamiokande detector, Kamioka Observatory, ICRR (Institute for Cosmic Ray Research), The University of Tokyo The DLX Design Lab is working alongside scientists and engineers around the world on the Hyper-Kamiokande Intermediate Water Cherenkov Detector (IWCD). The IWCD will be installed near the J-PARC neutrino beam source in Tokai, Ibaraki. The detector features a “PRISM” technique by moving vertically in a 40 m pit to provide precision measurements of the neutrino beam that can be extrapolated to the main Hyper-Kamiokande detector 295 km away in Kamioka, Gifu. By observing neutrinos change type along this journey (neutrino oscillation), we can get closer to understanding how the universe became filled with matter while almost all antimatter has disappeared. This is one of the biggest open questions in modern physics, and solving it could help explain why the universe looks the way it does today. Cherenkov lights observed by the IWCD detector (simulation), https://www-neutrino.kek.jp/en/project/iwcd/ The IWCD sits in a 50m vertical shaft, able to move up and down to detect neutrinos at different trajectories (https://www-neutrino.kek.jp/en/project/iwcd/) From creating rapid, low-cost mock-ups for quick testing to designing various brackets, jigs, and components for easier assembly and usability, the DLX Design Lab has demonstrated the value of design in complex manufacturing and engineering environments. By continuously testing ideas in a cheap and simple setup, mistakes and oversights that could be costly if they aren’t caught early in the process can be prevented, better informing the development process and helping prepare for deployment. Mockup of a section of the detector, J-PARC #Prototype #User_Test

AICOM - Mind the AI Gap game console. Where do humans still outperform AI? November 2024 ~ ongoing In collaboration with: Sugano Laboratory The goal of the AICOM Project is to create ways for the public and researchers to interact with and develop AI together. In order to discover the gaps in AI’s knowledge, we are making a game that allows the public to create data to be used to evaluate AI. In this two player game, players work together to create descriptions of images that humans understand but AI doesn’t. Through this, we create a dataset of images and human-written descriptions that challenge current AI systems. Research Inspiration Sugano Laboratory researches computer vision and artificial intelligence. As AI becomes more widespread, it becomes increasingly important to identify the limitations in current systems. A seemingly minor gap in knowledge may not affect the majority of users, but to a small minority, this may be a huge problem. To make AI systems that can serve diverse needs across society, we need to better understand these gaps in their capabilities. Data Collection through Gamification Gathering data through a game allows players to have fun while also contributing to the improvement of AI. Through many iterations of prototyping and user testing, we aim to strike a balance between gathering quality data while also making it a fun and rewarding experience. The game is collaborative, with two players working together to try to beat AICOM-chan. User testing at The University of Tokyo Komaba Research Campus 2025 Open Campus Photos by Itay Ayalon #Prototype #User_Test #AICOM_Project

Transforming food waste into sustainable agricultural value July 2023 - ongoing In collaboration with: Applied Entomology Lab Japan imports around 90% of its fertilisers used for food production, leaving it dependent on foreign resources. At the same time, over 5 million tonnes of food is wasted each year. We see an opportunity to gradually replace imported fertilisers by harnessing the nutrients from food waste. We are prototyping a system for restaurants called TabeMaru that hosts a colony of black soldier flies (known as BSF) which turn food waste into organic fertiliser. By closing the loop between production and consumption, we aim to reduce the reliance on imported fertilisers and foster greater agricultural resilience in Japan. #Ecology_Environment_Sustainability #Prototype

Toward resilient coexistence with urban wildlife 2024 - ongoing In collaboration with: Laboratory of Veterinary Ethology at the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences “Rats in the City” takes visitors on a year-long journey of urban rat observation and exploration. Through three interactive installations paired with photographs by Hiroyoshi Hara, the project invites you to see rats from a fresh perspective—free from prejudice. Perhaps rats are not the “filthy” pests we once assumed… Grounded in science, this project envisions sustainable urban life for both humans and wildlife as a step toward building more ecologically inclusive and resilient cities. Exhibitions Komaba Open Campus: May 30–31, 2025 DLX Curiosity Event at Tokyo Node: Aug 7, 2025 Gwangju Design Biennale (Gwangju, Korea): Aug 30 – Nov 2, 2025 Kashiwa Open Campus: Oct 24–25, 2025 Matsudo International Science Art Festival (Chiba, Japan): Oct 24–26, 2025 #Ecology_Environment_Sustainability #Exhibition

OMNI Delta tools developed for river cleaning Let’s prevent ocean-bound waste! 2024 - 2025 In collaboration with: Zushi City, Shikokuchuo City, Nagasaki Prefecture, Yamazaki Lab Studies suggest that plastics accumulate on land and in rivers, forming a long-term source of marine litter even if the primary source of mismanaged plastic waste is resolved. Around 80% of marine litter originates from the land, much of which accumulates in rivers and is eventually transported to the ocean. In addition, in Japan specifically, around 30% of the mainland coastline is covered by concrete tetrapods, designed to minimize coastal erosion by dissipating the power of waves and currents. Due to their large size and interlocking structure, the deep crevasses in between tetrapods is the perfect place for plastic to accumulate. Cleaning these areas is an important part to reducing marine litter, but both rivers and tetrapods tend to be difficult to access and clean. OMNI Delta is a project that encourages people to engage with and participate in marine litter reduction strategies by making river and tetrapod cleaning more approachable. With supervision from local stakeholders, we are working on design interventions to address these issues and make the activity more accessible. #Ecology_Environment_Sustainability #Prototype #OMNI_Project