CDW2025 Archives (EN)
Circular Design Week (CDW) is a platform that explores the possibility of place-based circular designs that emerge out of the traditions, daily practices, and complex relationalities unique to the Asia-Pacific region. For its third year, held over five days from November 19 to 23, 2025, in Kyoto and Shiga, the program was themed: “Responding in Time: Infrastructuring in the Post-Human Fūdo (風土).”
How might we reconsider our understanding of "time", for a systemic transition toward  circular societies? In response to this question, CDW 2025 sought to step back from the dominant framework of modern clock time (Chronos) to experiment with an attunement to the plural temporalities (Kairos) that interweave our fūdo (風土).
The fieldwork featured collaborations with world-renowned authority in visual and sensory ethnography Sarah Pink, and participatory design expert Yoko Akama. Using a unique “Kannō Method,” we explored the concepts of “attuning” and “responding” to the temporalities that arise within our relationships with the myriad entities that constitute our fūdo.
*The English texts presented on this website are translations of original Japanese articles, produced with the assistance of AI translation tools and human review. Readers are advised that certain linguistic and cultural nuances may not be perfectly transferable across languages. 


________________


Research Methods
CDW2025 Fieldwork: Infrastructuring in the Post-Human Fūdo
During Days 1 to 3 of Circular Design Week 2025 (CDW2025), fieldwork was conducted across Kyoto and Shiga. Throughout these three days, the primary focus for sharpening our senses was "Time." Much of our daily thought and behavior is dominated by "Chronos" (clock time) prevalent in modern society, which produces the economic value that sustains a modern linear economy. However, it can be said that economic activities governed by Chronos time have marginalized the diverse practices based on subjective senses of time. 
As we strive to realize circular economic models, it becomes a vital endeavor to re-examine "Kairos" (pluralistic time based on subjective and qualitative senses), which challenges these underlying assumptions. In this fieldwork, we aimed to step back from Chronos time and attune ourselves to the plural temporalities held by the myriad entities—microorganisms, flora and fauna, landforms, buildings, infrastructures, and machines—that weave together the "post-human" fūdo.
Process
* Day 1 (Fushimi): Participants first experienced the "Genkan (Entrance) Methodology," followed by research and output (Rapid Making) in the field of Fushimi.
* Day 2: Participants split into the Kameoka team and the Nagahama team to continue their research based on the methods experienced on Day 1.
* Day 3: After sharing the insights gained on Day 2, each team collaborated to produce a single "Kannō Booklet."
The Kannō Method
The objective of this fieldwork was to distance ourselves from modern Chronos time and become conscious of the plural temporalities (Kairos) that emerge within various relationships. To achieve this, we developed the "Kannō Method." Drawing inspiration from the Neo-Confucian principle of Kannō-Ichiri (感応一理, the unified principle of sense-feeling and responding), this original research methodology builds upon methods of Visual / Sensory Ethnography—the expertise of collaborator Professor Sarah Pink—and Participatory Design, practiced by Professor Yoko Akama.
Practicing "Kannō" requires a process of collecting, fermenting, and maturing over time—much like the fermentation of pickles. First, participants open their five senses to "smell," "listen," and "taste," allowing themselves to move in directions that resonate with them to "collect" objects or moments of interest. Next, they record these through physical findings, photography, or notes, allowing time to pass before reflecting on them again. Finally, these reflections are shared through dialogue with other participants and group members.
This iterative process—repeated many times and eventually converging into formats like videos, postcards, and booklets—constitutes the experimental "Kannō Method" tested during this program.
Additionally, the "Genkan (玄関 , entrance) Methodology" conducted at the start of Day 1 serves as a technique to help the Kannō Method settle into the body and mind, making it slightly easier to shift one's consciousness toward Kairos time. In the Fushimi fieldwork, experiencing the Ohitaki-sai (お火焚祭, fire-burning ritual)  —a sacred rite at the Gekkeikan sake brewery—acted as an exercise in "crossing the threshold" (Genkan) to reset the participants' mental and physical state.
Group Work
During the three-day fieldwork, participants were organized into groups of 4 to 5. Before beginning their research, each group set a "Lens" (point of entry) for Kannō. Choosing intuitively from five categories—Anticipating, Trusting, Caring, Moving, and Repeating—they organized the Kairos time they experienced in the field by exploring the nuances, broad meanings, and Japanese translations of these terms.
To draw out individual "Kannō," mutual inspiration among group members is essential. In this fieldwork, three roles were introduced: Maker, Watcher, and Asker. By assigning these roles within the group, participants could direct their attention to things they might not have noticed or felt when thinking alone.
Full details of the CDW2025 fieldwork program and the Kannō Method are documented in the Research Guide distributed to participants. We invite those interested to take a look.
English_CDW ResearchGuide.pdf
Reflection Notes
As a new initiative for CDW2025, an exploratory project titled "Reflection Notes & Generative Archive" was designed by three CDW fellows (Koki Kusano, Natsumi Tabusa, and Ō Hirano).
The fieldwork dealt with "Kairos time"—a topic emphasizing the plurality of each participant's subjectivity and senses—and practiced the Kannō Method as an approach. Guided by this focus on multiplicity, the team sought to create documentation and archiving processes that were equally pluralistic. This gave rise to the 'Reflection Notes & Generative Archive' project.
Using AI (NotebookLM) and LINE chat, the team designed tools and interactions for use during the fieldwork, which were actively utilized by participants throughout the three days. A column by the design team regarding this initiative is available for those interested.
Written by: Shin Okamoto (monlon G.I.A.)
________________


Day 1: Fushimi
Fushimi is located at the southern edge of Kyoto City, at the foot of the gentle Momoyama hills. Surrounded by the Uji, Kamo, and Katsura rivers, the hills’ expansive gravel layers form one of the thickest and most abundant groundwater systems in the Kyoto Basin. It is, in essence, a giant "water basin." The spring water that flows from it, known as Fushimizu (伏水), is low in iron and well-balanced in minerals, making it ideal for sake brewing. As the name suggests, the rich underground veins were the primary catalyst for Fushimi's development as one of Japan’s most renowned sake-brewing regions.
Historically, Fushimi also served as a vital hub for water and land transport. During the Edo period, it prospered as an important relay point connecting Kyoto and Osaka. Following the construction of Fushimi Castle by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the late 16th century, it developed as a castle town, port town, and post station. This geographical advantage facilitated the gathering of essential sake-brewing materials such as rice and timber for barrels, as well as the distribution of the finished sake across the country.
Hare and Ke: Moving Between Ritual and the Everyday
In Fushimi, and at the Gekkeikan brewery rooted here, the Hare (ハレ, the sacred/extraordinary) and the Ke (ケ, the profane/everyday) coexist inseparably. Sake was originally a ritual object created as an offering to the gods—a tool for Hare ceremonies. Gekkeikan, founded in 1637 as Kasagiya, has maintained this spiritual origin while successfully "installing" sake into the Ke time of people’s daily lives across the centuries.
In 1909, the 11th-generation head, Tsunekichi Okura, established Japan’s first private research institute dedicated to sake brewing. It was a pioneering move, marking a turning point where traditional brewing techniques were integrated with science to adapt to a modern sense of time. Yet, even amidst this modernization, a sense of numinosity remains. Inside the brewery, "sanctuaries" are demarcated by shimenawa (しめ縄, sacred ropes) and shide (紙垂, paper streamers), where kōji mold quietly performs its role behind glass.
We were fortunate to witness the Ohitaki Festival, a ritual to pray for the renewal of light and the successful start of the brewing year. While surrendering to a temporal flow that has remained unchanged for centuries, we were occasionally pulled back into modern time by the sight of nearby concrete apartments and the hum of outdoor AC condenser units. Moving between these states, we experienced a singular moment where the everyday and the ritual—the present and the eternal—overlapped.
Dialogue Across Scales: Brewing as the Attunement of Cycles
Sake brewing is less a human-led design process and more an accumulation of acts that "align" with different cycles and rhythms. Multiple temporalities overlap here: from the grand natural cycles of decades to the shifting of seasons and the microscopic activity of kōji and yeast.
At the largest scale is the water cycle. It is said that rain falling on the mountains takes four to five years—sometimes up to a decade—to permeate the ground as Fushimizu. While long by human standards, this is a relatively swift cycle on a planetary scale. This movement of water is both a temporal process and a spatial phenomenon. 
The character of the water is determined by its residence time underground. A shorter residence time underground means less contact with the rock, resulting in soft water with low mineral content. Conversely, in gentler terrain where water flows more slowly, it absorbs minerals and gradually moves toward becoming hard water. The "gentleness" of Kyoto’s water is a product of this specific topography and underground circulation. Tasting the water springing from Gekkeikan’s courtyard, one can physically feel its startling softness.
Next is the annual cycle, an intermediate scale. Since the mid-Edo period, production became limited to the winter months, with toji (杜氏, head brewers) and kurabito (蔵人, brewery workers) arriving from snowbound villages in autumn to live and work until spring. This human rhythm is attuned to fluctuations in temperature and humidity—a "repetition with variation" that is repeated every year, yet never exactly the same.
At the most microscopic scale is the activity of microorganisms such as kōji and yeast. Since kōji techniques were introduced in the 8th or 9th century, Japanese sake brewing has continued by having humans surrender themselves to the rhythms of these microbes. When kōji spores are sprinkled onto steamed rice, the mold proliferates and grows over a period of approximately 48 hours. This stage remains the most labor-intensive process in sake brewing even today.
As microorganisms, kōji remain active without distinction between day and night. Consequently, humans must remain by their side even in the middle of the night, providing constant, meticulous care—such as adjusting the temperature if the growth falters. In a sense, a sake brewery is a "microbe center," and humans are beings who exist to work for the sake of the kōji and yeast.
In this way, sake brewing is an endeavor of attunement, moving between different scales of time and space—from the grand water cycle to the rhythms of the seasons and the respiration of microorganisms. Through repeated dialogue between the small and the large, with humans standing in between, a single bottle of sake is born. It was deeply moving to hear Taiji Okura, the 15th-generation Vice President of Gekkeikan, describe how they continue to provide “kikubari (気配り, attentive care)” to ensure these various cycles—large and small—can coexist without obstructing one another.
Sense-feeling and Responding in Place: Walking Fushimi with the Kanno Method
The visit to Fushimi took place on the first day of the fieldwork—a day for participants to begin "tuning" their mode of perception. We employed the Kanno Method, assigning three roles: Maker, Watcher, and Asker. The key to this method is how the specific actions and focus of each role stimulate and layer upon the senses of others.
After attending the Ohitaki Festival, touring the brewery museum, and hearing from the head of production, we split into seven groups to explore the area. Each group was given a "Lens" (angle)—such as repeating, anticipating, or care—to guide their exploration. Rather than serving as a lens for analytical dissection, these functioned as 'devices' to gently pre-orient how we might forge a relationship with the place.
As we walked, the movements of the three roles intertwined, and subtle observations were shared through gestures and conversation. Rather than simply being in the same place at the same time, we were sensing together, layering our perceptions. Through this process, many moments occurred where the atmosphere shifted, leading to a sense of 'breakthrough.' These insights revealed perspectives that likely would not have emerged through individual reflection alone.
Following the fieldwork, groups synthesized their experience into expressions like minute-long films or postcards using fragments from the site—ash from the ritual fire, fallen leaves, or discarded sake caps. 
These were shared through the "Archipelagos of Learning and Sharing," a format where participants rotated through multiple session spots to engage in intimate, repeated dialogues. Through this collective "archipelago," the rhythms and depth of Fushimi emerged.
Just as sake brewing attunes different scales—water cycles, seasonal repetitions, and microbial breath—this fieldwork was an attempt to co-regulate the sensory rhythms flowing between people and the fūdo.
Written by: Hazuki Kosaka (RE:PUBLIC Inc.)
Special Thanks to
* Taiji Okura (Vice President, Gekkeikan Sake Co., Ltd.)
* Shinji Tanaka (Public Relations, General Affairs Dept., Gekkeikan Sake Co., Ltd.)
* Yosuke Yamanaka (Head of Brewing, Manufacturing Division, Gekkeikan Sake Co., Ltd.)
________________


Day 2: Nagahama
Nagahama is located in the northeastern part of Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest lake. Lake Biwa is said to have originated approximately one million years ago as Lake Katata, evolving over vast spans of time as it migrated eastward and expanded northward to reach its current form about 400,000 years ago. Since then, this lake has served as a vital water source for the Keihanshin (Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe) region and a critical hub for water transportation, sustaining the livelihoods of the people around it. Home to diverse ecological environments and 62 endemic species—including 17 types of fish—it is affectionately known as "Mother Lake."
Each winter, a phenomenon occurs where the oxygen-rich surface waters cool and sink to the lakebed, equalizing the oxygen levels and temperature throughout the entire lake. This complete vertical circulation is known as the "Deep Breath of Lake Biwa." It is said that when the news reports the observation of this annual "deep breath," a sense of relief washes over the local community.
the town of Kinomoto, once part of the former Ōmi Province. Just west of the town is Mt. Shizugatake, the site of the Battle of Shizugatake, leaving strong traces of Japan’s Warring States period. During the Edo period, Kinomoto flourished as a post town along the Hokkokukaidō, the route connecting Kyoto and Hokuriku, where feudal lords traveling to Kyoto for sankin-kōtai (参勤交代, alternate attendance) would also stay.
Wisdom Inherited by the Fūdo Itself
In Kinomoto, one senses that wisdom and memory—expanding both vertically through time and horizontally across space—are passed down through physical objects and everyday acts that transcend the lifespan of any single individual. 


Walking through the streets of Kinomoto, where a brewery with over 400 years of history stands alongside the Honjin Pharmacy, which has remained for over 200 years since its reconstruction, one is enveloped in the sensation that the vast stretches of time, usually confined to textbooks, are breathing in the present.


Amidst the overwhelming presence of this accumulated time, our first stop was Myōrakuji Temple of the Shinshū Ōtani sect standing in the heart of the town. We were warmly welcomed into the kitchen by Noriko Fujitani, the bōmori (坊守, temple caretaker's wife). She is one of the leaders of "Scrum," a group of local okan (おかん, mothers/matriarchs) active in this kitchen, who work to share the flavors and wisdom of fermented foods passed down through generations of women. Recipes nurtured within individual households in Kinomoto have mingled and evolved through community gatherings such as memorial services and shared meals. Changing with the seasons, available ingredients, and the times themselves, the dishes that appear on these women’s tables are now shared with contemporary lives through initiatives such as the “Okans’ Fermentated Food Delivery” and workshops.


Moving deeper into the kitchen, past unfamiliar manual tools like machines for grinding soybeans, we found a collection of jars tucked into a corner of the vast doma (土間, earthen-floor area). Noriko describes this spot as the place the "microbes like best." Here, local residents bring the food they have prepared themselves and return periodically to tend to them. Among these jars is a ten-year-old, jet-black Kinomoto-zuke (木之本漬け, pickles unique to this region), originally started by an okan who has since passed away, which the members of Scrum continue to unearth, re-pickle, and maintain every year. Ineffable flavors and labor are inherited jar-by-jar across generations, continuing to ferment slowly and steadily.


Far longer than any pickle, buried underground for centuries before being unearthed and still cherished by the people of today, is the Imo Kannon (いも観音, Potato Kannon) enshrined at the nearby Kuroda Annenji temple. Inside a small hall surrounded by lush greenery stand ten Bodhisattva statues with rounded, uneven surfaces. The Imo Kannon is said to have watched over the people since the Heian period. During the Warring States period, the statues were buried in rice paddies to shield them from the flames of war, remaining hidden until they were later rediscovered in the Edo period. They are said to have earned their name after being washed clean in the Yogo River like potatoes (imo). Until relatively recently, children would even use the statue as a float while playing in the river — an anecdote that speaks to how closely this Kannon has lived alongside the people, as a familiar and beloved presence.


These stories teach us that wisdom and memory are not always neatly codified into words, nor do they simply travel in one direction along a linear timeline. Instead, they reveal a mode of succession where the fūdo itself becomes the bearer of heritage; they can be triggered by a memory or resurface unexpectedly and take shape anew through tangible objects like buildings, pickles, and Buddhist statues, as well as through the rhythmic, repeated acts of daily life.
Emergence through "Process"
One of the vital lessons from Kinomoto was the richness that emerges when we truly place value in the "process". At our midday destination, Akatani-so (a former center for rural women’s independence), we were invited to step into the daily work of several local practitioners: Masami Horie, who balances publishing with running Kyuhou Kissaten (a cafe serving regional dishes like fermented Lake Biwa fish); the members of Tsunagu, who research and preserve regional food culture; and Yukari Watanabe of Shitateya to Shokunin (Tailor and Artisan), who, along with her fellow artisans, transforms kimonos tucked away in family chests into new garments.
In a kitchen reminiscent of a school home-economics room, we followed the lead of Horie-san and the Tsunagu team. Together, we repurposed the ii (飯, the rice of narezushi 熟鮓, lactic-fermented fish and rice) from our lunch into a dinner spread of curry, fritters, and even cheesecake.
Meanwhile, in the second-floor tatami room, Watanabe-san was unravelling the beautiful kimonos she had received along with their cherished memories. We helped iron and cut the fabric into widths suitable for shirts. She explained that even the smallest scraps are used, with ongoing experiments to transform them into high-quality paper. Every object and material exists in a state of continuous process, harboring the hidden potential to transform into something unexpected and remarkable.
The key to unlocking this potential was a posture of "entrusting" the process to the people, living beings, objects, and stories gathered in that space. The production process at Shitateya to Shokunin is a perfect example; their work involves a diverse array of people, including local farmers' wives. As we sat around a low table to unravel the kimonos, each person’s hand movements and the rhythmic "slip, snap" of the threads being pulled were entirely unique.
We felt this same posture in the yuzu shio-kōji (塩麹, salt-fermented rice malt) dressing Horie-san taught us to make for our dinner salad. While the ingredients—shio-kōji, olive oil, and yuzu juice—were fixed, there were no set proportions. The dressings created by three different participants, guided by their own senses, each possessed a distinct flavor. Even the mojito prepared at the end of the day by Eriko Arai, who had connected us to so many people and places in Nagahama, was a spontaneous creation: she combined Yamaji Sake Brewery’s kuwazake (桑酒, mulberry leaf liquor) with some fresh basil leaves that happened to be on hand.
By entrusting—and being entrusted—what emerged was more than just something special and fresh to that specific moment; it was a warmth that embraced imperfection, difference, and change. In retrospect, the rounded, gentle expression of the Imo Kannon—shaped by the touch of earth, water, air, and countless living beings—seemed to radiate that same warmth.
Spaces and Systems for Connecting the Invisible
In Nagahama, we also gained insights into the spaces and systems necessary to value "process" and to connect things that cannot be easily articulated or seen.
A prime example is the business model behind Shitateya to Shokunin’s "Shanari Shirts." Many of the kimonos that Watanabe-san receives as donations were once passed down through generations, worn as daily attire or for formal celebrations. Even if there are few opportunities to wear them today, many feel a sense of unease simply selling these cherished items to recyclers or tossing them into collection bins. To honor the memories accumulated in these garments, Shitateya to Shokunin created a "Memory Sheet" for donors to fill out, and a labeling system that allows the history of each kimono to be traced as it is reborn into a shirt. Through this business, they have created a process and a space where donors can properly say goodbye to their kimonos, allowing the garments to “jōbutsu” (成仏, find peace/ come to rest/ reach Buddha attainment). At the same time, this is a practice that can only be sustained by meticulously weaving threads of mutual trust.
Akatani-so, where we spent the latter half of the day, is another such space. Originally established in 1980 as a hub for improving the status and nutrition of rural women, it became a beloved site for learning and developing local cuisine traditionally shared at family and regional events. Although the facility was transferred from Nagahama City to a private company in 2023, management proved difficult, and it was regretfully closed in 2024. To preserve this vital space that has sustained the flavors of the Kohoku region and Lake Biwa, Horie-san and the members of Tsunagu took over the facility. We were fortunate to visit just as they had resumed operations in the summer of 2025.
In an era where traditional family dynamics and regional rituals are fading, spaces and times that allow these culinary techniques and wisdoms to "ferment" are also maintained at Myōrakuji, the temple where the fermentation okan (mothers) are active. The project grows directly out of the region’s pre-existing social and physical fabric. It finds its base in the temple’s kitchen and earthen floor where the okan used to prepare meals for memorial services, and the local custom of bringing homemade pickles to restaurants to share wisdom.
Their activities now connect beyond Kinomoto through new communication infrastructures, such as LINE Open Chat groups for sharing daily life, "Okans’ Fermentated Food Delivery" and crowdfunding. Under these systems, diverse wisdoms intermingle to create new forms, such as fermented sandwich recipes. One can easily imagine that these flavors will leave something precious for generations far into the future.
Through these efforts, yochi (余地, margins or openings) are created, as spaces where things often buried or stagnated by logic, capitalist economy and clock-time can begin to circulate once again.
Written by Hinako Takita (RE:PUBLIC Inc.)
Special Thanks to
*Listed in order of appearance during the fieldwork
* Eriko Arai (Representative, kei-fu LLC)
* The Kinomoto Volunteer Guides
* Noriko Fujitani (Bōmori  of Myōrakuji / Representative, Scrum)
* Kanako Tsushima (Writer / Regional Culture Coordinator)
* Michiaki Fujita (Representative, Annenji Imo Kannon Preservation Society)
* Yukari Watanabe (Representative Director, Shitateya to Shokunin)
* Takayuki Ishii (Representative Director, Shitateya to Shokunin)
* Masami Horie (Representative, Nomisha / Kyuhou Kissaten)
* The members of Tsunagu
* The staff of Shitateya to Shokunin
________________


Day 2: Kameoka
Located in the mid-western part of Kyoto Prefecture, Kameoka City has long served as a vital junction known as Kuchi-Tanba (口丹波), the gateway to the ancient capital. The foundation of its climate and culture is defined by the Kameoka Basin, cradled by low mountains, and the Hozugawa river system that nourishes it.
Legend has it that in the distant past, the Kameoka Basin was a vast lake called Ni-no-Umi (丹の湖, the Crimson Lake). Mythology from the Izumo era tells of the deity Okuninushi-no-Mikoto carving through the mountains to create the Hozugawa River, draining the lake to create habitable land. The Kuwata and Uketa Shrines, standing on opposite banks at the entrance to the Hozu Gorge, are said to derive their names from this legend: "receiving" (uketa, 受けた) the "hoe" (kuwa, 鍬) used for the excavation. Once the waters receded, the former lakebed became an incomparably fertile land. As the history of rice cultivation since the Yayoi period demonstrates, the very act of drawing, storing, and sharing this abundant water has been the true infrastructure of Kameoka. Even today, the city pursues a way of life in harmony with nature—cultivating rice and Kyoto vegetables such as Shogoin turnip and Kamo eggplant, while actively promoting organic agriculture and satoyama management. In Kameoka, the fūdo itself acts as a living infrastructure, continuously renewed through its deep connection with human activity.
Passing Through the Layers of Time: The Hozugawa River as Infrastructure
Day two of the program. Our fieldwork in Kameoka began even before we arrived. To step back from modern "clock time" (Chronos), we boarded the Sagano Romantic Train—a "Genkan methodology" akin to the Ohitaki fire festival we witnessed a day before in Fushimi. This railway originated as the Kyoto Railway in 1899. Though it was decommissioned in 1989 due to the doubling of the San-in Main Line, it was reborn a year later as a sightseeing train. We chose this over the standard JR line to physically imprint upon ourselves "an alternate sense of time" that flows along and through the Hozu Gorge.
As the train wound along the cliffs, a cold wind bit through the windows. Below, the emerald green of the Hozugawa River shimmered in the sunlight. To the rhythmic clack-clack of the rails, I felt the illusion of traveling backward through history. This river was once a vital artery for the capital’s logistics. During the construction of Heijo-kyo (Nara), timber from Tanba was lashed into rafts and floated downstream. In the Edo period, the wealthy merchant Suminokura Ryoi invested a fortune (equivalent to nearly one million USD today) to excavate the riverbed. This allowed not just rafts but boats to navigate the waters, ensuring a steady supply of Kameoka’s rice and vegetables to the city of Kyoto. Remarkably, to return upstream, the boatmen had to pull the heavy vessels back by walking along mountain paths—a labor almost unimaginable to those of us living in modern society. When the railway opened in the Meiji era, logistics moved to land, and the Hozugawa River transformed into an infrastructure for tourism. The tradition of river boat rides, which began in earnest around 1895, welcomed dignitaries such as the future Kings George V and Edward VIII, spreading the fame of the gorge’s beauty worldwide.
Fūdo and infrastructure. A waterway for timber became a canal for food, and eventually a resource for exploring the land’s beauty. Though its roles have shifted, the harsh yet bountiful flow of the Hozugawa River has never ceased to sustain the lives of the people inhabiting the land. Lost in these thoughts, we passed through the final tunnel to find the thick morning mist characteristic of Kameoka gently awaiting us.
Whetstones of 250 Million Years: Connecting Nature, Culture, and Technology
Arriving at Kameoka Station, we ascended mist-covered mountain roads to visit the Natural Whetstone and Hone Museum. Kameoka is one of the rare regions in the world that produces natural "finishing stones," essential for the final sharpening of blades. The geological layers here date back 250 million years to deep-sea sediments. The unique geological position of the Japanese archipelago—at the junction of four tectonic plates—uplifted hard siliceous claystone, creating this "holy land" of whetstones with a microscopic structure found nowhere else.
Guided by Tanaka-san, the director of the museum, we participated in a workshop based on the "Kannō Method" designed for this year’s program. We felt the weight of an authentic Japanese sword in our palms, planed wood with a kanna, sharpened knives on locally sourced whetstone, and heightening our senses in the process. When sharpening a knife, you hold the blade at a precise 15-degree angle, moving it back and forth at a steady, gliding (yet not too fast) pace. Press down just a little and you will feel the stone biting. The vibration goes into your fingers and up your arm. You repeat the gliding motion ten or so times, and by the end, the edge is sharp and shines in the light. Sharpening a knife takes time and effort. In those moments of tranquility, we find ourselves in conversation with the tool and the earth itself. The tactile sensation of a stone that ends up in front of us after 250 million years reminds us that we are part of the planet. In the modern era, we are less likely to engage in the act of sharpening. This signifies more than just a carelessness toward our tools; it suggests a severing of our connection to the earth and our ancestors. Against the backdrop of CDW’s mission of exploring "circularities" unique to the Asia-Pacific region, I realized mere mechanical tweaking or hacking of material cycles would not cut it. Instead, we must turn our attention to the deep bonds we are still capable of forming with the fūdo.
Tanaka-san describes whetstones as the “nexus of Japan's nature, culture, and technology." In a land scarce in iron ore, the culture of precise sharpening developed to preserve precious steel refined from iron sand. This culture underpinned the delicate knife work of Japanese cuisine and the exquisite architecture of master carpenters. A Kameoka whetstone is more than a tool; it is a "spiritual infrastructure" lying at the foundation of our culture across 250 million years.
Re-cognizing and Re-integrating "The Forgotten"
Next, we visited the Nantan Seiso Diaper Recycling Center. Here, technology is being developed to recycle used diapers into high-quality pulp and plastic. According to Masayuki Terai, who founded Gomi-no-Gakko (ごみの学校, The School of Waste) Inc. and is deeply involved in this project, used diapers—water-logged and difficult to burn—account for roughly 8% of Kameoka’s combustible waste. In a super-aging society, this number is expected to grow. A diaper is a three-layer structure of pulp, plastic, and super-absorbent polymer (SAP). In a machine Terai describes as a "giant washing machine," diapers are heated and rotated with water and chemicals. This cleanses and sterilizes the material while the impact of rotation breaks them down into pulp fibers and plastic fragments. Thus, what was once destined for the incinerator is reborn as raw material.
The Chinese character for "excrement" (ben: 便, convenience) originally carries the meaning of "smooth" or "without hindrance." In the Edo period, human waste was a valuable resource traded as fertilizer. In contrast, we moderns view it purely as "filth," erasing it from our thoughts the moment it is flushed. As the philosopher Timothy Morton suggests, there is no true boundary between "here" (inside the system) and "there" (outside). Trash put out in the morning or excreta flushed down the toilet does not simply vanish. Diaper recycling is an attempt to reintegrate what has been "forgotten" and thus relegated to non-existence in the wake of modernization back into the original cyclical flow.
The "Communal" Emerging out of the Knot of Body and Matter
Our final guide in Kameoka was Tomohachi Toyoda of the Hozugawa Yusen Boatmen’s Association. He explained that since the time of Suminokura Ryoi, boatmen have maintained the riverbed and crafted their own tools. Even the ropes used to moor the boats are hand-woven by the boatmen themselves from palm fibers (shuro). 
"Now, let's all try weaving a rope," he said with a smile. To show us how, Toyoda-san began weaving two plastic strings nonchalantly, producing a sturdy rope in an instant. Inspired by his effortlessness, we tried to mimic his movements, but it was incredibly difficult. While a few eventually caught on, the slightest misalignment in the pressure and angle of one’s palms caused the braid to unravel immediately.
"Embodied knowledge at its peak!" I thought. But then a realization struck: perhaps it is not accurate to say that this knowledge “belongs” to Toyoda-san alone. While certainly embodied in his body, it is also a "situated knowledge" open to the land of Kameoka and the generations of boatmen before and after him. Discerning the nuances of the riverbed that change with the weather, moving rocks to clear the path, crafting tools by hand—each is an act of embodied knowledge passed down through generations. Through this immense, continuous maintenance, I felt the boatmen were constantly reconstructing the relationship between (and among) the river, the surrounding land, and themselves.
The opportunity to reconnect with land and things is open to us as well, even if we are not boatmen. It can be found in the daily acts repeated innumerable times across generations—like sharpening a knife or weaving a rope—where the physical and the material entwine. Each of these acts connects us to the fūdo and allows us to be woven back into the "communal," comprising both ancestors and descendants. Spending time in Kameoka, where timeframes of millions and hundreds of years coexist with the present moment, allowed me to see this truth anew.
Written by Utano Oyamada, Edward Masui (RE:PUBLIC Inc.)
Special Thanks to
*Listed in order of appearance during the fieldwork
* Anna Namikawa (GIA Fogin, Local Partner for Kameoka Fieldwork)
* Aki Tanaka (Director of Natural Whetstone and Hone Museum)
* Emiko (Staff at Natural Whetstone and Hone Museum)
* Masayuki Terai (Founder and President of Gomi-no-Gakko Inc.)
* Tomohachi Toyoda (Representative Director of Hozugawa Yusen Boatmen’s Association)
* Shinya Takahashi (Chef and Owner of from the farm KYOTO)
________________


Day 3 Kannō Booklet
Archipelagos of Learning and Sharing: Collective Resonances Through the Kannō Booklet
On Day 3, a production workshop for the Kannō Booklet was held at KYOTO Design Lab (Kyoto City). Drawing on what they had sensed and experienced mainly in Nagahama and Kameoka on Day 2, participants worked in groups to create a collective output.
The completed booklets were shared in a format called “Archipelagos of Learning and Sharing.” In this setting, each participant’s multifaceted insights from the fieldwork resonated with and stimulated one another, forming a constellation of interconnected reflections.
“Omiai Party”-Style Reflection and Sharing
The session began with participants exchanging reflections from the Day 2 fieldwork. Those who had visited Kameoka and Nagahama formed two facing circles—an inner and an outer ring—and shared photographs taken on site. This rotating format was playfully referred to as an “omiai party” (matchmaking party), encouraging both personal reflection and active exchange of observations.
Booklet Production
Following this, participants moved into group work to create the Kannō Booklet. Divided into seven groups, they explored the multifaceted insights they had gained—relating to temporality, climate, and infrastructure—through selected lenses such as Anticipating, Trusting, Caring, Moving, and Repeating.
Within four hours, each group completed a 12-page booklet. Approaches varied: some expressed their learning visually through sketches and illustrations in addition to photographs and text; others incorporated materials gathered through their designated roles (Maker, Watcher, Asker) into the booklet’s composition. Each group developed a distinct method of articulating their collective reflections.
Archipelagos of Learning and Sharing
The completed booklets were then shared across teams using the “Archipelago” format. The booklet itself functioned as a supportive medium—an aid for expressing what participants had sensed—rather than a fixed or definitive account. What was emphasized or perceived differed depending on who was presenting and who was reading.
Each team first formed its own “island,” leaving one member behind as a host. Visitors from other islands then joined, engaging in dialogue while listening to the host’s explanation. Through several rounds of this decentralized exchange, a form of collective resonance gradually emerged.
Kannō Booklets
The seven completed Kannō Booklets can be accessed below. We warmly invite those interested to explore them.
Written by Shin Okamoto (monlon G.I.A.)
________________


Column 1: How Might We Collect and Archive Multiple Temporalities? — An Experimental Practice through “Reflection Notes” and the “Generative Archive”
Generative Archive Team
 Koki Kusano
O Hirano
Natsumi Tabusa
Background of the Initiative
During the three-day fieldwork of CDW 2025, our aim was to shift perspective from clock time (Chronos), which has underpinned modern society, toward plural temporalities (Kairos) that emerge within relationships.
In conventional program design, it is common to consolidate experiences into a single output through group discussion at the end of a fieldwork, or for a curator or editor to synthesize the experience into a coherent narrative. However, relying solely on such approaches risks losing the plurality embedded in participants’ cultural backgrounds and social positions (positionality)—including subtle bodily rhythms, affective resonances, and faint senses of discomfort that arise in the field.
We hypothesized that plural temporalities are not defined top-down but emerge bottom-up. Furthermore, by referencing what others felt and how they responded, participants might gain new insights and experience transformation themselves. From these hypotheses, the design of our tools began.
Overview of the Tools
As an experimental attempt, we developed two tools:
* “Reflection Notes”, using a LINE Business Account

* “Generative Archive”, an interactive archive built from data collected via LINE and processed using NotebookLM

We constructed an interactive archive that allows users to explore texts and images left as “individual reflections,” which were then incorporated into generative AI systems for dialogical engagement.
Reflection Notes: A Minimal Tool for Bottom-Up Reflection
“Reflection Notes” is an introspective tool that utilizes LINE—an app familiar to participants—allowing them to casually input reflections from their smartphones during gaps in the fieldwork schedule. There are no correct answers; participants are encouraged to “write without overthinking.” The tool serves as a container to preserve each person’s sense of “time” in their own words.
We designed four guiding prompts:
   * Situation: Describe the place or context visited.

   * Event: Reflect on what occurred there.

   * Affect: Address the emotions or resonances that emerged.

   * Insight: Consider what realizations arose from the experience.

Using the LINE Business Account, when a participant taps one of the menu buttons, an automated response displays the relevant question along with input examples.
LINE Business Accounts support image uploads and voice input, enabling participants to output sensory impressions in forms other than text. Multiple project members can manage and edit the account, and user inputs can be downloaded as CSV data.
Generative Archive: Preserving Collected Voices in a Dialogical Form
When collected records are edited, they risk being reabsorbed into the perspective of whoever “summarizes” them, thereby undermining the preservation of plurality. To address this, we constructed the Generative Archive.
Text and image data entered via LINE were downloaded, and statements were extracted in a way that prevents identification of individuals. To link reflections from different participants who experienced the same place or event, we inferred contextual elements—such as location, experience, or visual focus—from metadata including input timestamps and textual content.
These processed data were made readable in NotebookLM, forming the basis of the Generative Archive. In preparing the dataset, we also utilized other AI tools such as ChatGPT and Cursor.
This archive is not an AI designed to provide definitive answers. Rather, it is a tool that allows fieldwork participants to reference perspectives other than their own—voices that walked the same field—and to view different reflections side by side. Our aim was to preserve the coexistence of multiple temporal sensibilities without erasing individual voices.
Insights from Practice
Through implementing these tools, we found that reflection need not be merely “a task conducted at the end of a program.” Instead, it can enrich the field experience itself. By continuously prompting expression, participants appeared to expand their sensitivity and awareness within the field.
Participants entered reflections not only immediately after events but also while traveling, after returning to their accommodations, or even days later. Many entries included sensations that could not be verbalized on-site, or feelings that surfaced only after some temporal distance. Fragmentary and unfinished posts were common. The very accumulation of such ordinarily invisible expressions seemed to demonstrate the presence of plural temporalities within this fieldwork.
At the same time, challenges emerged. Amid the intensity of fieldwork, it can be difficult to record fresh impressions in real time. There remains considerable room for improvement in simplifying prompts and refining the timing and structure of input opportunities.
This initiative is still evolving. What matters most is not the tools themselves but the design philosophy: respecting individual sensibilities and their contexts while making them collectively referable. We hope to continue sharing and refining this practice across various settings—fieldwork, participatory design, education, community development, tourism—and to engage in ongoing experimentation together.
License
CDW25 Generative Archive © 2026 by Koki Kusano, O Hirano, Natsumi Tabusa, RE:PUBLIC Inc. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Guidelines for Use and Feedback
To evaluate and enhance the archive’s effectiveness, we would appreciate learning how it is used. No prior permission is required for workshops, research, or educational activities. However, we would be grateful if you could share information afterward about your methods and outcomes. Your feedback will contribute to the project’s further development.
Contact: cdw@re-public.jp
Further Reading
Minoo, A., Nimonjiya, S., & Konishi, K. (Eds.). (2021). Field education for anthropologists: Designing learning toward self-transformation. Nakanishiya Publishing.
https://www.nakanishiya.co.jp/book/b561919.html
________________


Column 2: The Possibilities of Collective Kannō 
Written by Hironori Iwasaki
 (Strategic Designer / Professor, Department of Creative Innovation, Musashino Art University / Visiting Professor, Shizenkan University Graduate School)
The fieldwork group arrived in the Kuroda settlement by microbus and quietly made their way up the slope leading to the Kannondō Hall of Kuroda Annenji Temple. Here in Kuroda, a Kannon statue—known as Imo Kannon (いも観音, Potato Kannon)—is enshrined. Hidden underground during the turmoil of the Warring States period, the statue has lost much of its original form. The path to the hall is narrow, flanked by towering cedar trees, and the group proceeded toward the small structure at the end of the approach.
One of the highlights of the Nagahama fieldwork was this visit to the Kannondō (観音堂, Kannon temple hall). I was born and raised in a nearby village, surrounded by premodern cultural traditions such as this temple hall until I finished high school. Even after moving to Tokyo, I would occasionally return with friends to visit the site. Yet when I gathered before the hall with dozens of fieldwork participants this time, I sensed something distinctly different.
The feeling of visiting alone—or in a small group—was clearly unlike the experience of arriving as a collective of several dozen people. The small hall could not accommodate everyone at once, so the group divided into two and entered in turns. Some listened to the guide inside, contemplating the altered and, from certain perspectives, almost painful figure of Imo Kannon. Others remained outside, enveloped by dappled light filtering through the trees and the subtle movement of wind in the forest canopy. Before my eyes unfolded a scene that could be described as collective sensing—a group resonating together with the space and time generated by a single place.
At the beginning of The Forgotten Japanese by the folklorist Tsuneichi Miyamoto, there is a story of an elder who, when asked to show an old document preserved in his village, replied that the matter would be decided through communal discussion. In premodern Japanese villages, collective decision-making through such gatherings was commonplace.
In the Nagahama region of Shiga Prefecture—this fieldwork’s site—there remains an annual Shinto ritual known as okonai. On a designated day each February, household representatives gather in one place to perform the ritual. It is also an occasion to share time, to sense together, and to strengthen communal bonds. Here too, collective resonance is enacted as a formal practice.
This fieldwork employed a method called kannō (感応, to sense-feel and respond), drawing from visual and sensory ethnography, participatory design, and Confucian thought. It seemed that this approach unfolded its full potential through a form of collectivity cultivated by our premodern predecessors. The participant roles of Maker, Watcher, and Asker functioned as devices enabling collective resonance. Roles are equally vital in village rituals like okonai (おこない, ritual practice) ; by fulfilling assigned roles, participants carry forward ritual forms that connect past and future.
Another key approach in the fieldwork was the distinction between Chronos and Kairos. Rather than privileging the absolute clock-time emblematic of modernity (Chronos), emphasis was placed on plural, relational time (Kairos). While modernity foregrounds the rational individual, this fieldwork seemed to enact a premodern mode of subjectivity—resonating through relational roles within a collective.
What, then, is the significance of such collectively constituted subjectivity in circular design? The linear economy—contrasted with the circular economy—rests on the modern industrial logic of extracting resources, producing goods, consuming them, and discarding them. Circular design instead calls for systems thinking that sees the world as a constellation of plural existences. The premodern subjectivity glimpsed in this fieldwork offers valuable insight here. By sharing place and time collectively, and engaging the world through assigned roles, collective resonance becomes possible. This was one of the fieldwork’s key achievements.
In Kyoto, participants transformed what they had collectively seen and heard into a shared booklet. Rather than accumulating experience individually, they expressed collective sensing as collective output—an approach that may be understood as a critique of modern individualism. Such outputs carry plural meanings and invite further collective resonance in those who encounter them.
Having grown up in Nagahama—where traces of the premodern remain vivid—and spent my adult years in Tokyo’s modern industrial society, I have long felt the strangeness of these two worlds coexisting in Japan. Would premodern society be entirely displaced by modern rationalism? Was there a way to reconcile the two? Moving between these worlds, I have continually carried this question.
Through CDW, I felt a glimmer of light on this question. Rather than viewing the Nagahama field through the lens of the modern individual, resonating through collective subjectivity—and expressing it in outputs open to plural interpretation—suggested a possible integration of these worlds. That this practice connected to circular design, an effort to mend the errors of industrial society, was one of the fieldwork’s most significant outcomes.
Further Reading
Ingold, T. (2015). The life of lines. Routledge.
Miyamoto, T. (1984). 忘れられた日本人 [The forgotten Japanese]. Iwanami Shoten. (Original work published 1960)
Pink, S. (2015). Doing sensory ethnography (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Hironori Iwasaki
Strategic Designer / Professor, Institute of Innovation, Musashino Art University / Adjunct Professor, Shizenkan University
Hironori is a professor at Institute of Innovation, Musashino Art University in Tokyo, where he teaches business strategy and design practice. He specializes in strategic design. As a strategic designer, he has been leading innovation projects and new product / new business development projects for major companies in Japan for more than twenty years. He has been working on branding, innovation, new business development and startup investment during his tenure at Hakuhodo. He has been awarded many awards including Red Dot Award Communication Design and D&AD Awards Design Transformation Category. He received a Bachelor’s Degree from International Christian University, Master Degree from Keio University, and Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, PhD in Management Science from Kyoto University.


________________


Keynote: Anticipatory Infrastructures for Circular Design Futures
In an era in which emerging technologies, including AI, powerfully orient our images of the future, how might we collectively imagine possible futures and bring multiple futures into being? In this keynote, anthropologist Sarah Pink (Monash University) proposed the concept of Anticipatory Infrastructures as a grounding from which to “feel” and experience the future, stepping back from dominant narratives centered on efficiency and optimization. She offered a point of departure for envisioning futures that encompass nonlinear temporalities rooted in diverse beings and relationships, as well as transformation and potentiality.
Speaker
Sarah Pink (Laureate Professor Director of the FUTURES Hub and the Emerging Technologies Research Lab Faculty of Art Design and Architecture Monash University)
Whose Future, and How Is It Felt?
Sarah Pink’s keynote began with an Acknowledgement of Country, expressing respect for ancestral lands and Indigenous peoples of Australia, and established the premise that any future we speak of must be “for everyone.” The future is neither singular nor exclusively human. This perspective repositions the future not as an object of planning or prediction, but as something that emerges within relationships among diverse beings and temporalities.
This stance is deeply intertwined with Pink’s anthropological inquiry. At the center of her research lies the question: How can we feel and experience possible futures? Imagining—or creating—the future is not merely an intellectual exercise conducted in abstraction; it is accompanied by sensation and affect. Yet imagining an unknown future directly is difficult; we inevitably rely on clues drawn from past and present experiences. For this reason, the “infrastructures” that enable us to feel and imagine futures become crucial.
Anticipatory Infrastructures and Circular Temporalities
In response to this question, Pink proposes the concept of Anticipatory Infrastructures. These are not mechanisms for reaching a predetermined destination. Rather, they are foundations—composed of narratives, relationships, practices, and technologies—that allow us to sense the future as uncertain, messy possibilities.
As a concrete example, Pink referred to her fieldwork experience in Nagahama during CDW2025, focusing on the act of unpicking a kimono. Undoing the seams of a kimono is not merely material processing; it directly connects to the bodies, lives, and temporalities of the women who once stitched it, calling the past into the present. At the same time, it invites anticipation and imagination of what new garment the fabric might become and whose body it might touch in the future.
Crucially, the kimono is never fixed in a single completed form. It is dismantled, reassembled, and transformed into other garments, yet its relationship to the past does not disappear. Circularity here does not indicate a linear transition from one static state to another; rather, it refers to an ongoing state of movement that retains relationships with multiple temporalities. Such circular practices themselves function as anticipatory infrastructures through which futures can be felt.
Thinking with Technology: Nonlinear Futures
In contemporary society, emerging technologies—particularly AI—already function as powerful anticipatory infrastructures. Yet they often operate in ways that promote linear and simplified visions of the future premised on problem-solving and efficiency. Narratives in which autonomous vehicles eliminate accidents and advance society are emblematic of this tendency.
Pink’s proposal is not to follow these technology-driven dominant narratives, but to “think with technology.” To enable the imagination of possible circular futures, we must neither allow technology to determine the future nor seek to exclude it. Rather, we need to reposition technology as part of the sensory worlds we already inhabit, and as one element among others through which futures are collectively considered.
“Quantum Society” as Anticipatory Infrastructure
As a speculative gesture, Pink introduced the potential of quantum technologies. Just as a qubit exists in a state that is not definitively 0 or 1, the kimono described earlier does not possess a fixed final form; through processes of dismantling and reconfiguration, it always holds the potential to become something else. Moreover, as “quantum entanglement” suggests, once entities are connected, their relationship persists across time and space. This resonates with the way a kimono, even as it changes form, continues to carry memories, meanings, and relationships associated with its makers and wearers.
Such a quantum worldview offers a way of understanding nonlinear temporality and transformation central to circular design. The keynote concluded with this hypothesis: that shifting the very worldview embedded in technology could contribute to infrastructural grounds for imagining circular futures.
Afterthoughts
For Futures That Do Not Yield to a Single Narrative
Hinako Takita (RE:PUBLIC Inc.)
If we can imagine “possible futures” only through past and present practices and relationships, then the question becomes how we might collectively weave the infrastructures that make such imagination possible, and what qualities those infrastructures might embody.
As Pink pointed out, emerging technologies, including AI, make futures oriented toward efficiency and growth appear as if they were the only possible trajectory. Yet such futures do not necessarily lead to outcomes desirable for society or the planet. At the same time, these technologies already shape our lived experiences and imaginative capacities. Pink’s speculative engagement with a quantum worldview was suggestive of shifting the worldview of technology itself toward infrastructural support for circular societies in which multiple temporalities and relations intertwine. 
Another key may lie in attending to the intermingling of modern technological narratives with worldviews rooted in climate, place, and everyday practice. If modern technologies will neither disappear nor be reducible to simple binaries of good and bad, then we are called to weave them into anticipatory infrastructures while continuing practices that resist absorption into dominant narratives.
In Nagahama, the group known as “Hakkō Okan” (発酵おかん, Fermentation Mothers), operating as “Scrum,” utilized smartphones and open chat tools—products of modernity—to record fermentation recipes created in daily life, report on activities, and share and consult about ways of tasting and eating. In doing so, they cultivated a community that included distant supporters and fostered an archive of lived knowledge. These practices demonstrate how a single technology, when intertwined with local climates and worldviews, can be transformed into something different.
This discussion also resonates with Masahiro Terada’s notion of “Future Fūdo,” presented in Session 6. By recognizing and nurturing the plurality of technologies, might we generate multiple futures—not merely the singular, modern technology-driven future—and the anticipatory infrastructures that sustain them?
Further Reading
Pink, S. (2015). Doing Sensory Ethnography (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications. 
Pink, S. (2022). Emerging Technologies / Life at the Edge of the Future. Routledge.
Terada, M. (Ed.). (2025). フューチャー風土――ひと、いきもの、思考する機械が共存在する未来 [Future fūdo: Futures of coexistence among humans, living beings, and thinking machines]. Kyoto University Press.


________________


Session 1: Beyond the Modern Sense of Time


In order to generate sustainable cycles of practice, we are called to reconsider our sense of time—particularly Western, modern temporal consciousness. Critiques of linear, future-oriented, one-directional conceptions of time and of progressive, linear notions of advancement can be found in discussions such as Tim Ingold’s reflections on “generations” and Tsuneichi Miyamoto’s accounts of the practices of village communities. Drawing on such attempts to move beyond modern temporal consciousness, this session engaged in dialogue exploring the possibilities of sustainable cycles through practices of kuyō (供養, memorial rites) and the commons.
Speakers


Kei Wakabayashi (Content Director / Independent Researcher, Blkswn Publishers Inc.)


Yoko Akama (Associate Professor, School of Design RMIT University / Co-lead Designing Entangled Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific (DESIAP))


Daijiro Mizuno (Professor / Deputy Director of the Center for the Possible Futures, Kyoto Institute of Technology)


Hiroshi Tamura (Moderator) (Co-Founder, RE:PUBLIC Inc.)
The Return of Medieval Imagination
Kei Wakabayashi (Blkswn Publishers Inc.) argued that our imagination has already moved away from science-fictional futures in which society is centrally integrated by technology, shifting instead toward what has been described as a “new medieval” chaotic order. As evidenced in anime such as Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen, it is not spaceships but medieval motifs—portals, enchanted swords, and spirits—that stimulate popular imagination. Many games are set in medieval worlds, and children become familiar with sorcerous cosmologies, including dragons, through platforms such as Minecraft. Digital technologies and AI operate to reconstruct fragmented, polycentric networks; the mass media’s centralized control of information has eroded, and it has become structurally inevitable that peripheral rumors flow into the center.
This shift in imagination reveals contradictions within contemporary society. We speak of the need to depart from modernity—toward a circular economy, for example. Yet in reality, such a departure is already underway. Declining literacy rates, the migration of news media to podcasts, the proliferation of conspiracy theories, and the fandomization of politics all signal the collapse of modern order, while also indicating unavoidable structural transformations. Nevertheless, many people frame these changes as “problems to be solved,” attempting to return to modernity. Wakabayashi challenges us to confront this fundamental contradiction and to reconsider our values at a more foundational level.
A Sorcerous Relationship with Tools
Wakabayashi further suggested that a sorcerous worldview is also evident in the relationship between humans and tools. Many tools were originally created as ritual or sorcerous objects before later becoming practical implements. As historian and folklorist Masao Takatori and historian Yoshihiko Amino have noted, distinctly Japanese sensibilities—such as feeling that one should not use another person’s tea bowl or chopsticks, or the custom of women hiding savings in sewing boxes—suggest that objects are imbued with individuality and inviolable domains. Tools are thus understood, in a sense, as talismanic objects.
Hiroshi Tamura (RE:PUBLIC Inc.) reflected on his fieldwork experience at CDW2025, observing that the act of sharpening a kitchen knife reconfigured the relationship between human and tool, generating new value through mindful care.
Consensus-Building through Yoriai (寄合, local gathering)  in Community
The discussion then turned to yoriai (寄合, local gathering) as a mode of consensus-building grounded in a temporal consciousness distinct from modernity. As depicted by Tsuneichi Miyamoto, yoriai as practiced in village communities fundamentally differs from modern meetings. The introduction of clocks and writing through modernization institutionalized notions such as “agendas” and “problem-solving,” privileging speed and rational efficiency in reaching consensus.
By contrast, yoriai may continue for three days and nights, during which participants share experiences, wander off topic and return, and gradually arrive at a loose form of agreement. Embedded in this process are assumptions fundamentally different from modernity: attentiveness to ongoing relationships with those who will continue living side by side, and an attitude that does not seek perfect consensus.
Discussion
In the latter half, Daijiro Mizuno (Kyoto Institute of Technology) and Yoko Akama (RMIT University) joined the dialogue to explore forms of “practice” that move beyond modern temporal consciousness. Mizuno pointed to the limitations of SF prototyping and emphasized the importance of referencing medieval or sorcerous imaginaries as a point of departure for thinking from a position of “Not Here, Not Now.”
Akama reflected on childhood memories of Japanese folktales and the intuitive feelings of “fear” or “taboo” evoked by yōkai (妖怪, supernatural creatures), suggesting that such embodied intuitions may hold methodological significance even today.
Wakabayashi introduced the idea of visiting a library as a kind of grave visitation for knowledge, and described initiatives by florists conducting memorial rites for flowers. He emphasized the importance of preventing “zombification”—the indefinite prolongation of life through life-extending acts that deny death. To transmit knowledge and relationships across generations, the discussion suggested, we must design cycles that incorporate ritual acceptance of death alongside regeneration and circulation.
Building on this, Akama proposed that in order to transition toward “practice” beyond modern sensibilities, we may need to design and operate spaces for “practise”, that is, spaces in which such alternative modes can be rehearsed and experienced.
At the session’s conclusion, the relationship between archives and sorcery was addressed. Wakabayashi observed that in contemporary internet-based archives, the past does not remain past but lingers perpetually in the present. The session closed with the question of whether the past and imagined worlds might intrude into the present through “cursing” or “possessing (like ghosts).”
Afterthoughts
Shin Okamoto (monlon G.I.A.)
This session traversed a wide range of themes—medieval imagination, the relationship between tools and sorcery, and consensus-building in yoriai—offering insights into forms of existence that already exceed modern temporal consciousness within contemporary society. Two highlights in particular strongly engaged participants.
The first was the contrast between science-fictional imagination and medieval imagination. Methods such as SF prototyping and foresight have been widely utilized since World War II in corporate management, product development, and policymaking, and have become familiar to designers. Yet when this modern (Western) temporal consciousness—viewing the future unidirectionally from the present—is applied to Japanese sensibilities or premodern life histories, does it not produce a certain discomfort? Terms introduced by Wakabayashi—yōkai, sorcery, ghosts—offered participants insight into the source of that unease.
The second highlight was the metaphor of the archive as a “grave.” Multiple participants raised questions about this metaphor, and discussion unfolded in multiple directions. If we detach this metaphor from a modern Western worldview, perhaps a grave need not signify something dead and past, but could be understood as a living grave. Japanese practices such as Obon (お盆, festival of the dead/ ancestral) and grave visitation suggest an ongoing dialogue with ancestors—an affective dimension not yet fully articulated conceptually, and therefore rich with potential for further development.
As a practical provocation, participants asked: if visiting a library can be understood as visiting a grave, what possibilities might emerge if this metaphor were integrated into the design and operational requirements of libraries? While no definitive direction was established, the question was left open as a potential avenue for application within each participant’s field of practice.
According to Kato (2007), who analyzed Japanese perceptions of time and space, contemporary Japanese temporal consciousness comprises a hybrid mixture of linear models without beginning or end, cyclical models, and models with distinct beginnings and endings. This heterogeneous quality shapes everyday rhythms and sensibilities. Against this backdrop, it seems fitting that the CDW2025 fieldwork in Fushimi, Nagahama, and Kameoka—sites where medieval practices intersect with contemporary life—focused on forms of existence that exceed modern temporal consciousness.
The perspectives gained here are not nostalgic returns to a premodern past nor merely alternatives projected into the future. Rather, they are viewpoints that can be integrated into the “here and now,” inviting each participant to incorporate them into their own daily practices.
Further Reading
Ingold, T. (2024). The rise and fall of Generation Now. Polity Press. https://www.politybooks.com/blog-detail/the-rise-and-fall-of-generation-now
Wakabayashi, M., & Hatanaka, A. (2023). 忘れられた日本人をひらく: 宮本常一と「世間」のデモクラシー [Reopening “The Forgotten Japanese”: Tsuneichi Miyamoto and the democracy of “seken”]. Blkswn Publishers.
https://amzn.asia/d/hkl607B
Takatori, M. (2023). 民俗のこころ [The heart of folklore]. Chikuma Shogaku Geijutsu Bunko.
https://www.chikumashobo.co.jp/product/9784480512093/
Kato, S. (2007). 日本文化における時間と空間 [Time and space in Japanese culture]. Iwanami Shoten.
https://www.iwanami.co.jp/book/b263685.html
________________


Session 2: Methods for Embedding Care and Maintenance in Everyday Infrastructures
Amid increasingly frequent events that exceed prior assumptions—repeated torrential rains, earthquakes, and the COVID-19 pandemic—what constitutes truly resilient infrastructure? And is there space for stakeholders themselves to participate in its upkeep and management?
Through diverse examples ranging from “flowing bridges” and architecture to schools, spanning hard to soft infrastructures, this session explored what meaningful participation looks like and how responsibility is redefined in these contexts.
Speakers
Miki Namba (Lecturer, Global Center Institute for Comprehensive Education, Faculty of General Education, Kagoshima University)
Atsushi Yamazaki (Architect, Takenaka Corporation)
Risa Furukawa (Co-Representative, Niidome School Foundation)
Edward Masui (Moderator) (Senior Director, RE:PUBLIC Inc.)
A Shift Toward “Care” Based on the Premise of Breakdown
Since the modern era, infrastructure such as roads and bridges has often been perceived as robust and permanent. In contrast, moderator Edward Masui (RE:PUBLIC Inc.) introduced anthropologist Shannon Mattern’s proposition that “infrastructure is always in a state of breakdown” as the starting point for discussion.
Where society has long prioritized innovation (often equated with technological advancement), we must now shift toward maintenance: tending to what inevitably deteriorates and continually drawing out its latent potential. Furthermore, Masui emphasized that maintenance should not be dismissed as a mere repair cost but redefined as care—a practice that enhances and sustains value. Precisely because things break down, we attend to them. This process of care lies at the heart of sustainable social foundations.
The “Flowing Bridge” in Laos: Responsibility as Response-ability
Miki Namba (Kagoshima University) presented the example of a “flowing bridge” in Laos—designed with the assumption that it will wash away when the river floods. Rather than resisting natural forces, the community rebuilds it each time. This cycle embodies socio-ecological resilience, where destruction and creation are inseparable.
From this case, Namba reexamined the concept of responsibility. Responsibility, she argued, is not an externally imposed duty (responsibility/ accountability), but rather response-ability: the capacity to react and act in the face of change. By refraining from externalizing risk and maintenance to specialists, and instead enabling users to build and maintain the bridge themselves, a form of sustainability emerges that is less dependent on institutional frameworks.
Designing Keinen-bika (経年美化, beauty through aging): Attachment as Architectural Longevity
What determines a building’s lifespan? Atsushi Yamazaki (Takenaka Corporation) suggested that beyond legal durability standards, it is the degree of attachment people feel that truly determines longevity.
In his “Architecture Becoming a Forest” project for Expo 2025 Osaka-Kansai, Yamazaki used 3D-printed biodegradable resin and handmade Japanese paper embedded with seeds, envisioning a building that, once its role ends, decays and returns to the forest—a planned “death” of architecture. In renovation projects, he combined subtractive “deconstruction” (removing unnecessary floors) with wooden extensions, achieving significant reductions in waste and CO₂ emissions.
Central to these efforts is the concept of keinen-bika—“beauty through aging.” By designing processes that allow human hands to participate in maintenance, buildings become integrated into their communities, cultivating attachment that supports intergenerational continuity.
Rebuilding Communities Through Learning Infrastructure
Risa Furukawa (Niidome School Foundation) presented the Niidome Elementary School project, which seeks to revive a school closed 18 years ago. She defined the school as a hub of diverse capital—social relationships, culture, and more. The disappearance of a school can lead to the erosion of these forms of capital and the collapse of local ecosystems. Conversely, rebuilding a rich environment for learning can revitalize the entire community.
Critiquing contemporary education for externalizing learning from daily life, Furukawa emphasized internalization—centering food and language and engaging children as active participants in everyday living. For example, children operating a restaurant to fund a school excursion becomes training in autonomously organizing their own lives. Schools, in this sense, function as “living infrastructure,” archiving embodied knowledge and transmitting the spirit of care and maintenance to future generations.
Discussion: Redesigning Participation and Responsibility
The discussion centered on balancing participation and responsibility in infrastructure and architecture. Namba suggested that designing systems in which stakeholders build and use from within allows responsibility to shift from legal obligation to distributed response among participants.
Yamazaki spoke about the need for designers to assume a certain level of risk amid increasingly stringent safety standards, thereby reconstructing criteria that accept aging and transformation over time.
Furukawa criticized adult-imposed safety standards as often functioning to evade adult responsibility, depriving children of opportunities to develop their own capacity to navigate risk.
The session concluded with shared recognition that designing yohaku (余白, margin）or “room for engagement”—spaces in which people can remain involved across generations over long time spans—constitutes a critical future task.
Afterthoughts
Assuming Response-ability as Coming to Terms with the World’s Unruliness

Threading through the session was, on the one hand, recognition of the limits of modernity, which has externalized functions in pursuit of efficiency and safety; and on the other, a turn toward internalization as a means of recovering agency. As ecologist John Harte has noted, scientific approaches underpinning modern development aspire towards universal laws and patterns by bracketing out chaotic feedback loops in complex systems, situational particularities, and contingencies. In this sense, modern “safety” rests on the fiction of pushing the world’s unruliness out of sight (and thus out of mind). From this perspective, Namba’s framing of responsibility as response-ability one assumes towards co-existing others can be seen as an attempt to reintegrate the externalities that science has systematically precipitated. It suggests an ethical mode of being in what environmental philosopher Masatake Shinohara calls the “post-human” world. Yamazaki’s architecture premised on participation and “aging beautifully”, and Furukawa’s educational environments cultivating children’s autonomy in shaping their own lives — these practices powerfully illustrate responsibility as response-ability enacted across different domains.
Further Reading
CDW23 Conference Proceedings
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VLoxmY-Io7ROtfC5CV3QgnohAj8ITFZA/view
Mattern, S. (2021). A city is not a computer: Other urban intelligences. Princeton University Press.
Furukawa, F (Ed.). (2024). モビリティと物質性の人類 [Anthropology of Mobility and Materiality]. Shunpūsha.
“Hiyori Nursery School 2019 Graduates Restaurant ‘Mikareyuki ka’” YouTube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISIKgb_M3Bk
Niidome Elementary School Foundation Official Note
https://note.com/niidome
Shinohara, M. (2020). 「人間以後」の哲学：人新世を生きる [Post-Human Philosophy: Living in the Anthropocene]. Kodansha.
Harte, J. (2002). Toward a synthesis of the Newtonian and Darwinian worldviews. Physics Today, 55(10), 29–35. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1522164
________________


Session 3: Attuning with/ in Spirituality - Relational Practices in Circular Design
In circular design, “spirituality” tends to be avoided. Why do we hesitate to engage with it? The session opened with this question posed by Yoko Akama (RMIT University), who challenged practices that prioritize efficiency and profitability alone. While the possibility of re-examining spirituality and religiosity in Asia and Japan had also surfaced in Session 1—through discussions of sorcery and yokai—this session sought to make those ideas more concrete and actionable.
Speakers
Yoko Akama (Associate Professor, School of Design, RMIT University / Co-Lead, Designing Entangled Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific (DESIAP))
Masafumi Kawachi (Representative Director, Deep Care Lab / Co-Representative, PUBLIC & DESIGN)
Kok Yoong Lim (Associate Professor, School of Communication & Design, RMIT University Vietnam)
Practices of Memorialization and Circulation
Masafumi Kawachi (Deep Care Lab / PUBLIC & DESIGN) described how his experience living in Finland led him to recognize the importance of receiving care. Drawing on the Jōdo Buddhist concept of ōsō-gensō (往相還相, the reciprocal movement of going and returning), he applies this idea to contemporary practice.
In a marine project, he experimented with transforming the shells of long-spined sea urchins into skipping stones or dangos and returning them to the sea as a form of playful memorial offering. This practice attempts to reconcile material circulation with spiritual circulation.
At Ōten-in Temple in Osaka, he organized workshops centered on kuyō (供養, memorial rites) for objects, living beings, and even the AI robot aibo. Through a ritual of “removing the soul” conducted by a Buddhist priest, participants experienced a symbolic severing of attachment to objects, opening space for new relational possibilities.
Metamodernism and the Spiritual Circular Economy
Kok Yoong Lim (RMIT University Vietnam) situated the present as an era of polycrisis, in which multiple crises are entangled. He argued that spirituality can function as a tool for addressing deep-seated existential anxieties. A circular economy focused solely on material circulation risks becoming greenwashing; what is truly needed is a “spiritual loop” of meaning and responsibility.
In smart city research in Vietnam, Lim redefines technology not as an enemy of spirituality but as a tool for self-reflection. By reframing users as “existors” (beings-in-existence), he proposed a new framework for embedding spirituality within digital design.
Embodied Practice and the Concept of Kokoro
In the latter half of the session, participants engaged in one of three embodied practices: shakyō (写経, sutra copying), zazen (座禅, seated meditation), or Hokōzen (歩行禅, walking meditation). Through these experiences, Akama emphasized that spirituality must be encountered through the body.
Drawing on her research on kokoro, she highlighted the inseparability of mind, body, emotion, and spirit, introducing a co-ontological perspective she terms “ko-ontology.” She also cautioned that reducing spirituality to strictly religious meaning risks obscuring its essence. Within the ebb and flow of daily life, like the rising and falling tide, it may be important to consciously switch on and off moments of attentiveness to spirituality, without abandoning materiality or embodiment.
Discussion
In response to Kawachi’s marine project and aibo memorial example, Lim reiterated the importance of spiritual circulation alongside material circulation. Regarding contemporary issues such as digital afterlife and the AI simulation of the deceased, participants noted the danger that transforming the dead into AI might fix relationships in place and eliminate space for creativity.
Kawachi emphasized that the act of explicitly marking an ending through kuyō enables new relationships to begin. He noted resonance with Wakabayashi’s argument on “the importance of dying.”
In response to Lim’s proposal, Kawachi inquired about the positioning of a spiritual layer within smart cities. Lim suggested redefining technology as a tool for self-reflection rather than treating it as the adversary of spirituality. In Vietnam, where spiritual culture remains deeply embedded in everyday life, he proposed developing models that reflect each city’s specificity, incorporating what might be called “spiritual technologies.” The discussion ultimately underscored the importance of recovering cycles of meaning and responsibility by refusing to separate materiality and spirituality, and by cultivating new relationships among memorial practice, care, and technology.
Afterthoughts
Shin Okamoto (monlon G.I.A.)
For me, this session became an introspective moment of asking myself: Why am I here now? This question emerged not only from the presentations in the first half, but also from personally experiencing sutra copying, seated meditation, and walking meditation in the latter half. Beginning from concerns of work and everyday life, a quiet atmosphere emerged in which each participant reflected on how they are situated within multiple relationships and why they find themselves here in this moment.
As discussed, spirituality can be understood beyond religion as a kind of relational “in-betweenness” in daily life. I felt this particularly during the fieldwork visit on Day 2 to the Imo Kannon in Nagahama and Kinomoto. Originally created as a Buddhist statue of a specific sect, the Kannon image was repeatedly buried by local residents during times of war and unearthed once peace returned. Over time, it came to be known as Imo Kannon and became a presence watching over the community, transcending sectarian boundaries. Today, networks of care extend beyond religious practitioners and local people. Support from a broader community sustains the statue and its hall. 
As this example shows, spirituality in Japan often exists beyond formal religion, embedded in wishes amid uncertain times and in everyday habits, transcending generations and temporal boundaries. Might we also discover such spirituality—consciously or unconsciously—within our own lives?
Having co-hosted a workshop at Ōten-in with Kawachi, I recall similar discussions centered on the theme of “ancestors.” Situating ancestors within family, work, and social relationships is not confined to religious meaning. Likewise, PUBLIC & DESIGN’s initiatives address themes such as birth, death, and aging—topics often treated as taboo in daily life—by bringing them into public discourse.
One of the key learnings from this session was that spirituality, though sometimes avoided, can be accepted as something already present among us, and meaningfully integrated into both life and work.
Further Reading
Akama, Y. (2017). Kokoro of design: Embracing heterogeneity in design research. Design and Culture, 9(1), 79–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/17547075.2017.1280266
Nakanishi, Y., Motoe, M., & Ishikawa, H. (n.d.). スマートシティとキノコとブッダ: 人間中心「ではない」デザインの思考法 [Smart cities, mushrooms, and Buddha: Thinking beyond human-centered design]. BNN.
https://bnn.co.jp/products/9784802513081
PUBLIC & DESIGN. (n.d.). Umamimumemo (産まみ（む）めも) Exhibition. Retrieved February 12, 2026.
https://publicanddesign.studio/umamimumemo
Ōten-in & Deep Care Lab. (n.d.). Asobi no Shōja (あそびの精舎, Play Monastery) note articles. Retrieved February 12, 2026.
https://note.com/asobi_outenin
________________


Session 4: The Timeless Ways of Business in Kyoto
Yoshino cedar, used in traditional Japanese architecture, takes more than 100 years to mature. It is said that people have inherited their livelihoods across generations by aligning their work with the growth of trees and the rhythms of forest ecosystems. Moderator Hiroshi Tamura (RE:PUBLIC Inc.) remarked that discussing such forms of business—distinct from the linear economy premised on the “wisdom of not owning” characteristic of modernity—holds particular significance in the Kansai region.
In this session, three practitioners engaged in dialogue on the theme of “Timeless Ways of Business,” drawing from examples of enterprises in Japan that operate on the premise of several hundred years.
Speakers


Okisato Nagata (Planning Director, TIMELESS Inc.)
Feilang Tseng (Co-Founder, ROOTS Inc.)
Taiji Okura (Vice President Gekkeikan Sake Co., Ltd.)
Hiroshi Tamura (Moderator) (Co-Founder, RE:PUBLIC Inc.)


Craftsmanship that Generates Circulation of Relationships
Okisato Nagata (TIMELESS Inc.) reflected that through his involvement in art and design, he has been drawn to craft as an act of embracing “different movements and elements.” The term kōgei (工芸, craft) appears as early as the Kaogongji (考工記, Records on the examination of craftsmanship) of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period in China. Approximately 3,000 years later, he argued, humanity now faces an era in which we must pursue balance in making things—balance with climate, topography, and history.
Through the exhibition project tetete (ててて) Nagata has explored the option of medium-scale production—creating manageable quantities in manageable ways. In a kintsugi project developed in collaboration with a department store in Kyoto, he explored methods for loving flaws and weaknesses. Rather than pursuing merely material cycles such as “recycling” or “remaking,” he emphasized the importance of fostering cycles of relationships.
Inheriting Wisdom through Embodied Knowledge
Feilang Tseng (ROOTS Inc.) described how, after practicing design thinking, industrial design, and UI/UX design, she became aware of the limitations of human-centered design. Living in a mid-Edo-period thatched farmhouse in the Keihoku area of northern Kyoto City, she discovered that satoyama landscapes already embodied what might be called “nature-centered design.”
Working with thatchers and foresters—“Local Wisdom Meisters”—she participates in managing thatch fields on a 20-year cycle and practices circularity using materials sourced within a three-kilometer radius. Positioning travel as a “gateway industry” to the region, ROOTS operates one- to seven-day training programs called “Satoyama Journeys,” as well as “Wisdom Exchange” initiatives connecting artisans from Japan and abroad. Tseng emphasized the importance of experiences through which individuals feel themselves to be part of nature through the body, restoring creativity by aligning mind and bodily sensation, and cultivating a disposition that enables sustainable design to be considered as one’s own concern.
Over 400 Years of Sake Brewing with Microorganisms
Taiji Okura (Gekkeikan Sake Co., Ltd.) introduced the nearly 400-year history of sake brewing in Fushimi, Kyoto. Beneath Fushimi lies 4.5 billion tons of groundwater that circulates over four to five years. The breweries of Fushimi, including Gekkeikan, use only a few percent of this supply. Okura remarked that learning this fact gave him the sense that they are “merely allowed to use a small portion of water within a vast natural flow.”
Tracing the history of sake and its relationship to Shinto rituals, he outlined Gekkeikan’s 400-year trajectory, explaining how the company’s adoption of scientific technologies, adaptive advertising strategies, and responsiveness to historical shifts enabled it to seize opportunities across eras. He concluded by describing the 48-hour continuous process of cultivating kōji mold, noting that sake brewing is in many ways a “microorganism-centered” practice in which humans work for the sake of microbes. From the perspective of human–microbe relationships, he posed the question: What does it mean for something to be “handmade”?
Discussion
In the latter half of the session, the three panelists reflected on each other’s activities and raised several key points.
In discussions of “medium-scale production,” embodied by the practices of Nagata and Tseng, it was suggested that the era is shifting from homogeneous ideals of “anytime, anywhere, anyone” toward “here, now, me.” The significance of creating what can only be produced in a particular place, including culture, is increasing.
Regarding the “acquisition of embodiment,” Tseng shared that through living in satoyama, she came to understand the coexistence of differing values that once felt discordant within an urban mindset. Rather than resembling a “symphony,” in which surrounding elements align to a single melody, this coexistence is better described as “polyphony,” a multiplicity of voices. Immersing herself in the environment enabled her to perceive the value of such polyphony.
Okura, meanwhile, reflected that although he is unsure whether he fully fits within the value system woven through the long history of the brewery, he may be exploring a polyphonic sensibility through recurring annual rituals and practices, such as Shinto ceremonies and visits to the household Buddhist altar. 
Afterthoughts
Shin Okamoto (monlon G.I.A.)
How Can We Notice Phenomena That Cannot Be Explained by Human-Centered Frameworks?
This session offered profound insights into how practitioners, in diverse environments and contexts, are exploring ways of thinking and conducting business that diverge from the modern linear economy. Nagata emphasized an attitude of loving and embracing difference and weakness in making; Tseng described gradually understanding circular practices centered on nature and local wisdom within satoyama; and Okura explained how sake brewing becomes possible when humans attune themselves to microorganisms and underground water systems.
Through my own research activities in Kyoto, I came to the understanding that practices rooted in places personally meaningful to me are designed with an awareness of ancestors and ancestral intentions at their center. In a 2024 paper by Masui and Kosaka of RE:PUBLIC Inc., insight was offered into the production of katsuobushi (鰹節, matured dried bonito)—an ingredient emblematic of Japanese cuisine—where humans attune themselves to the long-term movements of mold.
Perhaps some readers of this article, too, have encountered situations that cannot be fully explained within human-centered frameworks.
As an introduction, Tamura referenced Stewart Brand’s (1994) concept of pace layering, which provides important intellectual understanding that merely pursuing rapid change and technological innovation risks thinning civilization and society. Yet to understand how such insights may be practiced—not only intellectually but bodily—it is necessary to encounter, in embodied ways, situations that exceed human-centered explanation and to allow them to permeate over time.
From this perspective, the fact that this session was held in Kyoto carries particular significance. CDW once again demonstrated that deep learning emerges when embodied experiences from fieldwork are interwoven with conference dialogue.
Further Readings
Brand, S. (1994). How buildings learn: What happens after they're built. Viking Adult. https://www.colemanm.org/books/brand-how-buildings-learn/
Kaogongji. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved February 12, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaogongji
Okamoto, S., & Mizuno, D. (2024). Coexisting with ancestors – Elongating participation between "pasts" and "futures". In Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Exploratory Papers and Workshops - Volume 2 (PDC '24, Vol. 2, pp. 114–121). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3661455.3669879
Masui, E., & Kosaka, H. (2024). One thousand years of infrastructuring katsuobushi: Aligning temporalities within more-than-human entanglements. In Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Exploratory Papers and Workshops - Volume 2 (PDC '24, Vol. 2, pp. 147–152). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3661455.3669883
________________


Session 5: Governance and the Possibilities of Human Intervention in Post-Human Fūdo


Session 5, titled “Governance and the Possibilities of Human Intervention in Post-Human Fūdo’” revisited the question of how humans might intervene and reweave governance while relating to nonhuman entities in a “post-human” milieu. Drawing on the speakers’ regional practices and discussions surrounding legal systems, the session explored how governance can be reconfigured through entangled relationships between humans and more-than-human actors.


Speakers
Tatsuhiko Inatani (Professor, Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University)
Riken Komatsu (Local Activist / Writer)
Masayuki Terai (CEO, Gomi no Gakko Inc.)
Tomohide Mizuuchi (Moderator) (Associate Professor, Center for the Possible Futures, Kyoto Institute of Technology)
Governance that Continually Responds to Change: The Shift Toward Agile Governance
Tatsuhiko Inatani (Kyoto University) began by examining how modern law has sought to govern society through universal and fixed rules based on the model of the rational individual. However, amid globalization, rapid scientific and technological developments, and environmental crises, the very premises underpinning this system are becoming dysfunctional as uncertainty intensifies.
Inatani proposed the concept of “agile governance.” Rather than imposing a predetermined “ideal state” from above, this approach continuously adjusts legal and institutional systems in response to diverse visions of “how we wish to be.” Central to this framework is a polyphonic governance system—one that does not exclude events that appear as errors or deviations, but instead incorporates them as feedback. Through collective verification and revision, institutions are dynamically updated. Such processes, he argued, enhance society’s adaptive capacity in an unpredictable world.
The Possibility of Being a Kyōjisha (共事者, One Who Shares in the Matter)
Riken Komatsu (Local Activist / Writer) reflected on his work in Iwaki City, Fukushima, following the nuclear disaster, where he has grappled with forms of knowledge emerging outside expert and institutional frameworks. Describing his own practice as “whatever arises from the amateur, unaffiliated, feral field,” he shared how, from the standpoint of neither scientist nor fisher, investigating fish contamination led to interconnected inquiries into ecology, fishing methods, and cooking. Science, he suggested, can emerge from everyday life.
Building on this experience, Komatsu proposed the idea of the kyōjisha (共事者)—literally, “one who shares in the matter.” Rather than leaving social issues solely to official stakeholders or experts, external participants may engage as co-actors. A kyōjisha does not assume heavy responsibility as a central agent, but instead remains loosely yet continuously involved, often beginning from personal curiosity or discomfort.
This perspective repositions humans not as unilateral “governors,” but as part of the relational fabric constituting society and environment. Expanding the scope of stakeholdership to include the dead, nature, and future generations, Komatsu emphasized an attitude of attunement and responsiveness—incorporating unpredictable emotions and dissonances as triggers for adjustment rather than excluding them.
What Precedes Technology and Institutions: Cultivating Circulation Through Place and Lived Experience
Masayuki Terai (Gomi no Gakko Inc.) drew from his long experience in industrial waste management to argue that solving social issues requires more than technological or institutional updates. Without reweaving relationships among the people who use these systems, change cannot take root in practice.
As a concrete example, he introduced initiatives such as the “Meguru-wa Exchange Market” and “repair cafés”, open civic spaces that function as mediating platforms. Through repair and bartering, these initiatives seek to restore intergenerational and cross-sector relationships within the Kameoka region.
In Kameoka City as well, while technical initiatives such as the enactment of an ordinance banning the provision of plastic shopping bags—prompted by volunteer-led clean-up activities along the Hozu River—and the recycling of disposable paper diapers have progressed, parallel efforts have continued to create spaces in which different sectors collaborate and where even children can participate through storytelling and embodied experiences that foster a shared understanding of the value of circularity.
Terai emphasizes the importance of cultivating what might be called an “ma (間, in-between)” domain that connects technology and institutions with citizens’ everyday sensibilities and habitual practices. In other words, through media, events, and other mediating platforms, the crucial question is how to create spaces in which people can tangibly experience and internalize the meaning of circularity. Such spaces are essential for embedding circular practices within daily life.
People’s behavior is not unilaterally determined by technology or business models. Rather, Terai argues that it is necessary to create environments that enable embodied, sensory engagement through concrete experiences and material mediations, thereby nurturing pathways through which knowledge can translate into action. Only through such processes, he suggests, can circularity take root within the community.
Discussion: Where Does “Rightness” Emerge?
The discussion revolved around whether the “rightness” that moves society originates from pre-established institutional ideals or emerges from lived practices and relationships. In response to moderator Tomohide Mizuuchi (Kyoto Institute of Technology)’s questions, Inatani noted his affinity with Komatsu’s practice, pointing to a shared discomfort with modern law’s presumption of universal and absolute correctness.
If the sensibilities of everyday life remain external to institutions, law and governance cannot function effectively. Instead, institutions must incorporate such sensibilities and evolve accordingly.
Komatsu and Terai provided concrete examples: rather than imposing expert knowledge, they invite people into experiences and relationships that create sensory entry points. Komatsu described creating entryways where even “0.1” can be taken home—particularly in Fukushima, where complex safety and political issues are difficult to address directly. Offering experiential engagement through food allows even the disengaged to begin participating. Terai similarly emphasized experiential understanding over verbal explanation in waste separation and circular practices.
From these examples, Inatani suggested that actions emerging from personal curiosity and exploration should be welcomed in democratic decision-making. Bringing such actions together and adjusting through compromise and negotiation may form the core of a new governance model beyond fixed-rule systems.
Activism and institutions, sensibility and law, practice and governance—rather than standing in opposition—can be understood as mutually influencing and continuously renewing one another.
Afterthoughts
Kahono Sugiura (RE:PUBLIC Inc.)
Just when one thinks they are taking in a broad landscape, the perspective suddenly zooms in, bringing one’s own actions sharply into focus. After that moment of realization, when one steps back again to survey the world, new layers of meaning and previously unseen overlaps begin to emerge within what appears to be the very same scene. This session offered conference participants precisely such an experience.
Komatsu’s statement, “Science is not governed solely by scientists” was particularly striking. Knowledge and science emerge not only from experts but also from embodied practice and trial-and-error in the field. Scientific “facts” capture only one aspect of reality, yet we often mistake them for the whole. Hearing this, one could feel modern assumptions of singular “rightness” gently loosening.
Similarly in the legal context, Inatani pointed out that rather than attempting to resolve the crises we face immediately—primarily through technological means—we are called upon not to turn away from “trouble,” but to engage in productive compromise and ongoing adjustment within a range that does not stray too far from our ethical intuitions. That very range is itself continually shaped: broadly through negotiations within societies and cultures, and more narrowly through dialogue among local communities and directly involved parties. He emphasized the indispensability of collective practices in which, through on-the-ground dialogue, we repeatedly reexamine and recalibrate the nature of our relationships, taking as cues the responses of others and of nonhuman actors.
This stance of continually updating one’s judgments under conditions of uncertainty was evident throughout the session. It functioned not merely as a methodology for decision-making, but as a form of care for the space itself—including those listening—allowing conclusions to remain open and acknowledging hesitation rather than eliminating it. The words spoken under such a premise seemed to contain a tacit permission to continue thinking, which in turn generated a particular sense of reassurance unique to this gathering. Perhaps this sense of ease arose precisely because judgment and thought were not framed as processes confined within the individual, but as something that wavers and is rewoven within relationships. The practical processes described by the three speakers, too, may be understood as ongoing efforts to update judgment within such relational entanglements.
Further Reading
Kameoka City (2025). 環る（めぐる）」を体験！『８』のつく日はサーキュラーかめおかラボへ！『めぐるひろばプロジェクト』を定期開催：環境先進都市・亀岡発！市民参加型プロジェクトが始動 [Meguru’ in Action! Circular Kameoka Lab on Every Day with an ‘8. The “Meguru Hiroba Project” to Be Held Regularly:A Citizen-Driven Initiative Kicks Off in Environmentally Progressive Kameoka!]
https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000068.000052338.html
Komatsu, R. (2021). 新復興論増補版[A Renewed Theory of Recovery and Reconstruction].  Genron.
Komatsu, R. (2025). 小名浜ピープルズ [Onahama Peoples]. Satoyamasha.
Shishido, J. (Ed.), Inatani, T., et al. (2025). 統治機構Ⅱ（講座立憲主義と憲法学 第5巻）[Governing Institutions II]. Shinzansha.
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Podcast ひらけごみ！[Open Garbage!]
https://open.spotify.com/show/5A5n9G9FZSmWK2zPGM3tFt?si=dfa15b4d04bb42eb
Callanan, L., & Dušek, M. (2021). Here’s how agile governance could help manage uncertainty. World Economic Forum.https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/10/agile-governance-could-help-manage-uncertainty/
WIRED Japan. プルリバース時代のガバナンスを考える『Agile Governance Summit』の見どころ [Highlights of the Agile Governance Summit].
https://wired.jp/article/agile-governance-summit-2023/
________________


Session 6: Futures of Fūdo / Fūdo of the Future
This session approached fūdo (風土) as a plural and co-generative field open not only to humans but also to animals, plants, microorganisms, things, and even machines and AI. From this standpoint, the discussion explored forms of post-human fūdo that move beyond modern worldviews, asking how we might describe and create future fūdos.
Speakers
Masahiro Terada (Visiting Professor, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature)
Yoko Akama (Associate Professor, School of Design RMIT University / Co-lead Designing Entangled Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific (DESIAP))
Daijiro Mizuno (Professor / Deputy Director of the Center for the Possible Futures, Kyoto Institute of Technology)
Narrative and Design — The Symmetry of Past and Future
Masahiro Terada (Research Institute for Humanity and Nature) began by proposing, from the perspectives of historiography and fūdology, that past and future are symmetrical in that both arise through narrative. As philosopher J. E. McTaggart’s argument for “the unreality of time” suggests, past and future do not exist in themselves; they emerge only when narrated in the present.
When time is understood as a linguistic and relational structure grounded in the present, history appears as a practice of composing the past from fragmentary traces. Carlo Ginzburg’s “evidential paradigm” is a method of inferring an unseen past from subtle clues. Terada suggested that this mode of thinking closely parallels the act of envisioning the future, since the future, too, is woven from signs and relations that are present here and now.
Design becomes crucial at this juncture. Design concretizes narratives about the future and implements them within society. The future is not something to be predicted; rather, it is designed through narrative and actualized within relationships.
Transformations of the Concept of Fūdo
Terada then turned to a reconsideration of the concept of fūdo itself. With a history of over two thousand years, the term has functioned as a kind of lingua franca across East Asia. Originally referring to natural environment, it has gradually come to be understood as the totality of relations entangling humans and environment, history, technology, and sensibility, and has been inherited as a practical mode of thought.
In Japan, Tetsurō Watsuji philosophically redefined fūdo in his book Fūdo. Watsuji conceived human existence not as an isolated individual but as aidagara (間柄, betweenness or relationality) and located fūdo within the mutual relationship between humans and nature. In this view, fūdo is not merely natural environment but a relational existence inseparable from human activity.
Building on this, Watsuji proposed the idea of the “fūdonian self”, a self already situated within the environment. This was an attempt to move beyond the Cartesian self that separates subject and object. The self is simultaneously the seeing subject and the seen object; subject and object are not separate but mutually constituted within relationships.
What Emerges When We Do Not Divide — The Possibility of the Fūdonian Self
This line of thought was later developed by French geographer Augustin Berque in his mesology or fūdogaku (風土学, fūdo studies). Berque analyzed the generation of meaning in the “between” of humans and environment, understanding fūdo as a dynamic relational system. Rather than opposing humans and environment, this perspective reexamines the totality of relations constituted between them. In the face of global challenges such as climate crisis and biodiversity loss, this approach takes on renewed urgency.
Terada suggested that this mode of “not dividing” may render visible domains marginalized under modern dualism. One such domain is care. Within the public/private divide, care has often been relegated to the private sphere and not positioned as a central social value.
From the standpoint of the fūdonian self, however, the self is constituted from the outset within relationships with others and the environment. Our bodies and thoughts are generated through interactions with others, things, living beings, and technologies. If we understand that the external world is already contained within the self, care can be repositioned not as a specialized role or private act but as a practice sustaining existence itself.
Discussion: Fūdology In the Making — The Future as Dynamic Process
The session affirmed that fūdo is always “in the making,” a dynamic process. In discussion with Yoko Akama (RMIT University)and Daijiro Mizuno (Kyoto Institute of Technology), the focus turned to how the relational fūdonian self might be translated into design practice.
Akama referred to the potential of “boundary objects” as devices connecting different worldviews, asking whether the concept of fūdo, or even images of the future, might function as such boundary objects. She also highlighted the importance of “anticipatory infrastructures,” as proposed by Sarah Pink in her keynote, emphasizing dialogical and negotiated practices.
Mizuno agreed that modern Western epistemological design has contributed to unsustainability and, drawing on Arturo Escobar, affirmed the significance of a shift toward ontological design. At the same time, acknowledging that technoscience—such as decomposable materials, digital fabrication, and sensor technologies—is already part of fūdo, he argued for weaving milieu together with technology rather than advocating a return to nature.
Responding to these questions, Terada addressed the embodiment of AI and artificial entities, examining possibilities for coexistence with beings that possess bodies distinct from biological organisms. Rather than opposing the Cartesian self and the fūdonian self, he suggested the challenge lies in integrating them. He also noted that the concept of fūdo is increasingly shared internationally, indicating a growing need for holistic perspectives.
The session concluded with a “Kannō Time.” What does it mean to sense a place and respond to it? Participants spent quiet time experiencing this individually. Following an introduction to the Heart Sutra phrase shiki soku ze kū (色即是空, form is emptiness, meaning all things arise relationally and do not exist independently), participants sat in silence, sensing and responding to the space.
Afterthoughts
Hazuki Kosaka (RE:PUBLIC Inc.)
 The More We Narrate, the More Certain Futures Become: A Call to Create Fudoki (風土記, records of fūdo) 
Generally, the past is regarded as certain because it has already occurred, while the future is considered uncertain because it has yet to happen. Terada challenged this temporal view. The past appears certain only because many people access its traces, interpret them, and narrate them. The certainty of the future, by contrast, increases when more people think about, narrate, and design it.
From this perspective, the three days of fieldwork and outputs preceding the conference can be understood as an attempt to write a “contemporary fudoki.” Rather than describing the environment from outside, this practice involved sensing and responding to what was happening in a designated angle or situation, capturing subjects who feel the flow of time within the world. By narrating, we give contour to the future and raise it as shared time. In doing so, the future shifts from something predicted to something co-created.
Designing Relationships Through Chōshin (調心, attuning the mind and heart) and Chōsoku (調息, attuning the breath)
In designing CDW2025 as a whole, we placed importance on the word attuning. We believed that multiple temporalities flow through a place, and that when humans seek to attune themselves to it, they must adopt an attitude that aligns with the time of the beings in place.
We had translated attuning as “chōritsu (調律, tuning),” but on the third day of fieldwork, a discussion between Akama and interpreter Kei Nakayama left a strong impression. Nakayama suggested that chōshin (調心, attuning the mind and heart)  and chōsoku (調息, attuning the breath) might better capture the meaning.
The character chō (調) carries both the active sense of “totonoeru ととのえる, to adjust, to regulate” and the more organic sense of “totonou ととのう, to become attuned”. It can refer not only to an individual body or breath becoming aligned, but also to a collective sense of “the place becoming attuned.” Nakayama described it as “not just oneself, but everyone becoming aligned together—each attuning to the other, selves dissolving into one another.” He suggested that this might be what it means to attune.
Rather than aligning to a fixed standard or someone else’s “correct” measure, we attune mutually within relationships. This dynamic sense resonates with Terada’s explanation of fūdo: a loop in which neither subject nor object can be posited as foundational. It echoes a looped conception of self in which self and world arise mutually.
Hearing Terada speak at the end of five days of experience, I wondered whether this might be something fundamental to Asian thought. The session seemed to revisit, at the level of embodied sensibility, the “design of relationships” we had been exploring throughout CDW.
Further Reading
Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Duke University Press.
Ginzburg, C. (1979). Spie: Radici di un paradigma indiziario. In Crisi della ragione (pp. 57–106). Einaudi.
Terada, M. (Ed.). (2025). フューチャー風土――ひと、いきもの、思考する機械が共存在する未来 [Future fūdo: A future of coexistence among humans, living beings, and thinking machines]. Kyoto University Press.
Berque, A. (1986). Le sauvage et l’artifice: Les Japonais devant la nature. Gallimard.
McTaggart, J. E. (1908). The unreality of time. Mind, 17(68), 457–474.
Watsuji, T. (1935/1979). 風土 [Fūdo]. Iwanami Shoten.