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.
Contents*
FieldWork Day 1〜3
Conference Day 4〜5
Others
*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.
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Research Methods
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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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Day 3 Kannō Booklets
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.
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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
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 plurarity 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.
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Column 2: The Possibilities of Collective Kannō
Written by Hironori Iwasaki (Strategic Designer / Professor, Department of Creative Innovation, Musashino Art University / Adjunct Professor, Shizenkan University)
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.
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Keynote
Anticipatory Infrastructures for Circular Design Futures
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Sarah Pink
Laureate Professor Director of the FUTURES Hub and the Emerging Technologies Research Lab Faculty of Art Design and Architecture Monash University
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Session 1
Beyond the Modern Sense of Time
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Kei Wakabayashi
Content Director / Independent Researcher, Blkswn Publishers Inc.
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Yoko Akama
Associate Professor, School of Design RMIT University / Co-lead Designing Entangled Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific (DESIAP)
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Daijiro Mizuno
Professor / Deputy Director of the Center for the Possible Futures, Kyoto Institute of Technology
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Hiroshi Tamura (Moderator)
Co-Founder, RE:PUBLIC Inc.
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Session 2
Methods for Embedding Care and Maintenance in Everyday Infrastructures
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Miki Namba
Lecturer, Global Center Institute for Comprehensive Education, Faculty of General Education, Kagoshima University
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Atsushi Yamazaki
Architect, Takenaka Corporation
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Risa Furukawa
Co-Representative, Niidome School Foundation
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Edward Masui (Moderator)
Senior Director, RE:PUBLIC Inc.
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Session 3
Attuning with/in Spirituality - Relational Practices in Circular Design
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Yoko Akama
Associate Professor, School of Design, RMIT University / Co-Lead, Designing Entangled Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific (DESIAP)
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Masafumi Kawachi
Representative Director, Deep Care Lab / Co-Representative, PUBLIC & DESIGN
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Kok Yoong Lim
Associate Professor, School of Communication & Design, RMIT University Vietnam
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Session 4
The Timeless Ways of Business in Kyoto
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Okisato Nagata
Planning Director, TIMELESS Inc.
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Feilang Tseng
Co-Founder, ROOTS Inc.
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Taiji Okura
Vice President Gekkeikan Sake Co., Ltd.
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Hiroshi Tamura (Moderator)
Co-Founder, RE:PUBLIC Inc.
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Session 5
Governance and the Possibilities of Human Intervention in Post-Human Fūdo
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Tatsuhiko Inatani
Professor, Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University
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Riken Komatsu
Local Activist / Writer
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Masayuki Terai
CEO, Gomi no Gakko Inc.
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Tomohide Mizuuchi (Moderator)
Associate Professor, Center for the Possible Futures, Kyoto Institute of Technology
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Session 6
Futures of Fudo / Fudo of the Future
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Masahiro Terada
Visiting Professor, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
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Yoko Akama
Associate Professor, School of Design RMIT University / Co-lead Designing Entangled Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific (DESIAP)
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Daijiro Mizuno
Professor / Deputy Director of the Center for the Possible Futures, Kyoto Institute of Technology
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CDW2025 After Movie
Snapshots
All Texts from the Archive
All texts available on this archive site can be downloaded together from the link below (.txt and .pdf) . You are welcome to use them as needed, including for generative AI applications. When using the texts, please remember to indicate the source.
Download Texts 1.5MB
Main organizer
Circular Design Praxis (CDP) is a coalition of academic institutions, businesses, and communities for fostering and implementing a place-based approach to circular design predicated on systemic change, launched in Japan in 2022. CDP recognizes the abundance of the lands as a starting point, and cultivates a place of praxis for local collectives of diverse peoples, backgrounds and expertise.
Re:public was founded in 2013 as a 'think and do tank' to catalyze systemic shifts in local communities, organizations, and cities of different scales. Combined with our global network of creative designers and researchers, we are uniquely positioned to identify place-based opportunities, help individuals and communities to work with these opportunities, and empower them to envision and create their own futures.
Co-organizer
KYOTO Design Lab [D-lab] is a platform for collaborations, founded by Kyoto Institute of Technology as a cross-disciplinary education and research base in the fields of architecture and design. Since its inauguration in 2014, D-lab holds the mission of “Innovation by Design” and plays a role of incubator where various areas of expertise come together to discover and solve social problems through ground work research.
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