2025 (Current Year) Faculty Courses School of Environment and Society Department of Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering Graduate major in Global Engineering for Development, Environment and Society
Concept Designing: Interdisciplinary Making
- Academic unit or major
- Graduate major in Global Engineering for Development, Environment and Society
- Instructor(s)
- Kayoko Nohara / Xinru Zhu
- Class Format
- Lecture/Exercise (Face-to-face)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - Intensive
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- GEG.P501
- Number of credits
- 110
- Course offered
- 2025
- Offered quarter
- 2Q
- Syllabus updated
- Jun 12, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
Society is seeking "specialized professionals with design perspective and art sensitivity". This talent should be able to create things that balance functionality—including expression and communication, not just convenience and efficiency—with form, incorporating diverse perspectives. At its root lies the question of "how to give form to universal and versatile ways of thinking (concepts)". In this workshop, students will experience a creative process: building concepts through discussion based on given themes, discovering their own unique procedures, creating simple molding objects, and giving presentations. Through this thinking and experimentation process, working together with students and faculty from Musashino Art University, students are expected to discover normally overlooked aspects of "ideas taking form" such as the various possibilities, discoveries, difficulties of communication, and the importance of trial and error.
Course description and aims
This workshop has the objective of bringing together the many perspectives within a team to produce a product or system which expresses a good balance between functionality in a broad sense and form. By creating a combined team with Musashino Art University students under the guidance of faculty, it will broaden perspectives and teach the difficulty and importance of communication through debate and direct experience of manufacturing.
Keywords
Concept, Form, Musashino Art University, Design, Communication
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
Intensive workshop for 6 days from late July to early August. Make a mixed team with students of design and fine arts and obtain practical experience of the thinking and experimentation process in the sequence "From a subject extract an idea, and develop a new concept up to an artistic expression". After a lecture on basic art and design theory and learning about communication between different disciplines, each team will take part in the workshop. Students should be conscious of creating not only concepts and objects, but also developing their own processes. Finally, teams will present their results and created an object, which will be subject to evaluation from the faculty and external visitors.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Understand basic art and design theories, inter-semiotic translation and semiotics | Background research |
| Class 2 | Create "concept" out of the given theme through discussion in each team. | Transfer from theme to concept |
| Class 3 | Workshop 2: Delve more deeply into concepts to clarify them. Interim presentation will be given in the second half. | Share a clear idea about the concept |
| Class 4 | Produce a 3-D: Making from the concept. | Complete the production |
| Class 5 | Produce a 3-D: Making from the concept. | Complete the production |
| Class 6 | Presentation and discussion | Preparing the output |
Study advice (preparation and review)
Textbook(s)
-
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Handouts will be given out.
Evaluation methods and criteria
Contribution to the group task, final output (object and presentation), creativity and logical connection in presentation, reflective remarks survey and report.
Related courses
- TSE.C203 ： Transdisciplinary Design Project
- ACE.C537 ： Global Communication: Scientific Publishing
- GEG.S413 ： Science Media and Communication
- GEG.S414 ： Emerging Insights in Science and Art
Prerequisites
-
Contact information (e-mail and phone) Notice : Please replace from ”[at]” to ”@”(half-width character).
Nohara Lab and Zhu Lab, Department of Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering, School of Environment and Society
Other
The following is the schedule for 2025:
August 4th, 2025 (Monday) 13:00-16:30 @ Ookayama Campus, Tokyo Institute of Technology
August 5th, 2025 (Tuesday) 13:00-16:30 @ Ookayama Campus, Tokyo Institute of Technology
August 6th, 2025 (Wednesday) 13:00-16:30 @ Ichigaya Campus, Musashino Art University
August 7th, 2025 (Thursday) 13:00-16:30 @ Ichigaya Campus, Musashino Art University
August 8th, 2025 (Friday) 13:00-16:30 @ Ichigaya Campus, Musashino Art University
August 9th, 2025 (Saturday) 13:00-18:00 @ Ichigaya Campus, Musashino Art University
The schedule is subject to change. In this case, registered students will be notified.
If the number of registrants exceeds the capacity, a lottery will be held to select participants. Please be aware that a pre-lottery survey will be sent in mid-June. Participants will be determined in early July.
The decision of whether to set up a group to have discussion in English will be based on the answers to the survey.