Sites for Observation and Fieldwork

On and off campus learning sites

Ohashi Campus

Introduction to Fieldwork for Environmental Design (Nature field) is a freshman course that teaches students to sketch plants found in their everyday environment, collect specimens, identify them, and understand their growing environments.

Kurogi-machi, Yame City

The freshman orientation camp is an annual event held in April for students at the School of Design. For several years, the Department of Environmental Design has organized a two-day orientation camp for its students at Shiki Saikan, a facility that provides a farming experience, and this creates an opportunity to exchange ideas with locals from Kurogi-machi, Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture. The orientation camp also allows students to get acquainted with each other and the faculty members. They also learn about the current situation in a local farming community and mountain villages that produce the food, trees, and other products of relevance to environmental design.

Nara and Kyoto

In Field Exercise on Environment, students travel to Nara and Kyoto to visit historic buildings and streets, as well as historical sites under renovation. Through on-site lectures and the observation of the characteristics of the remarkable traditional structures, cities, and environments, as well as the current status of cultural heritage conservation, students obtain a more profound knowledge and understanding about the history of Japanese architecture and cities.

Mt. Kounosu Special Green Space Conservation District, Fukuoka City

The Environmental Conservation course provides sophomore students with opportunities to participate in volunteer activities and provide services near the Ohashi campus in Minami-ku, Fukuoka City, thus, helping them deepen their understanding about actual environmental conservation activities, and it provides a chance to interact with the community volunteers. The photo shows students’ participation in an environmental conservation activity conducted by Konosu Satoyama Club in an urban forest located at the boundary between Chuo-ku and Minami-ku in Fukuoka City.

Flowerbed in the rotary in front of Ohashi Station, Minami-ku, Fukuoka City

Students cooperate with NPO Horticultural Well-being Fukuoka Net to grow flowers in this flowerbed located in the rotary in front of the Nishitetsu Railways’ Ohashi Station in Fukuoka City.

Bangladesh and Nepal

In the Senior Project I and II, students can engage in field studies concerning relationships between people’s lives and the environment in villages in Bangladesh or Nepal.

Outdoor Urban Environment

Cities are filled with many artificial objects, and have complex landscapes because of the various buildings constructed within. As a result, cities experience local and unique climatic changes called “urban climate.” The department is trying to better understand the urban climate by observing the characteristics of the wind, temperature, and humidity above cities with a sensor mounted on a balloon.

Facilities

Presentation Room, Building No. 2

The Presentation Room on the second floor of Building No. 2 is the core space for design education provided by the Department of Environmental Design. Among other courses, Design Exercise classes for sophomore and junior students are given in this room. Exercises that involve same-day design, group discussions, drawing, tutorials by professors, presentations, and review sessions.

1st Floor, Environmental Design Center

The Structural Testing Laboratory on the 1st floor of the Environmental Design Center is a facility designed for studying and developing mechanisms to enhance the safety of buildings. In this laboratory, Building Materials Testing Exercise classes are given in which students test building material strengths using a 2000 kN universal testing machine. Experimental studies on new building structures and construction methods are also conducted here using equipment for structure multipurpose pressing experiments.

Environmental Design Studio, 2nd Floor, Ohashi Branch of the Research Institute

At the Ohashi Branch of the Research Institute, each student is provided with a computer installed with various software applications for design. In the Introduction to Basic Technique for Environmental Design, students learn how to create CAD drawings and three-dimensional computer graphics perspective drawings, using masterpiece houses as examples in this studio.

Design Workshop

In Basic Exercise for Fundamental Design for freshman, students learn how to produce pieces of multipurpose furniture and storage units after receiving basic training on how to use the workshop and how to maintain a safe working environment.

Environmental System Laboratory

The Environmental System Laboratory is designed to produce and install mockups to allow students to conduct psychological evaluation while experiencing their ambient spaces in a life-size setting.

Dark Room for Image Projection

This is a room for conducting psychological evaluation using such images as computer graphics. The dark room is furnished with a 150-inch transmissive screen that ensures a wide visual field and a 120-inch reflective screen that ensures reproduction of high luminance images.

Equipment

Equipment for structure multipurpose pressing experiments

This equipment is designed for examining and testing the destruction behavior of test models in the research and development of new building structures and construction methods. This equipment contains a reaction device that comprises a 1-meter-thick wall and reaction floor and four dynamic servo-actuators (two 500 kN units and two 200 kN units) that apply force.

Lighting system with dimmer and color control, 2nd floor, Environmental Design Center

On the 2nd floor of the Environmental Design Center is a dark room for conducting lighting and landscape model experiments. The dark room is furnished with a lighting system that ensures precise adjustment of light intensity and color (LED and fluorescent lamps). Using this adjustable lighting system, room interior and streetscape models are tested for impression and other psychological effects under different lighting conditions.