At the 133rd GRIPS Forum on November 21, 2016, Mr. Ryo Yamazaki, CEO of Studio-L, Director of Community Design at the Tohoku University of Art and Design, gave a lecture titled “What is Community Design?”.

Abstract

This lecture discussed how to support community residents to solve their local problems.

Speakers’ Profile:

Born in Aichi, in 1973. After the university, he worked in SEN, inc., where he developed his skills and knowledge in landscape design advised by Mr. Shosuke Miyake, a founder of this firm. As well, he learnt social organization and relationship management from Dr. Fusayo Asano there.

He founded studio-L in 2005 and he has continuously offered the innovative solutions for the local problems by inspiring and leading the local communities. He advocates the importance of “Community Design” which he defined as the empowerment of the locals through design to make them happy. His major projects contain planning workshops, making comprehensive plans and park management. In recent years he has been involved with welfare and healthcare’s issues in Japan and helps designing care system to support the elderly in neighbourhoods.

He has published some books including: Community Design (2011), Social Design Atlas(2012), The era of Community Design(2012), Happiness theory for the local area(2012).