Client
Kyushu University & KAIST
Sponsors
Hitachi, Toyota, Kyushu Electric
Collaborator
Re:Public

We hosted the inaugural workshop for K2, a design and innovation Lab launched by Kyushu University and KAIST.

To chart a course for a new design lab, we crafted a workshop for a mix of student and corporate participants that helped them build new skills for designing with emergent contexts, new technologies, and civic life. Thirty people (divided into six teams) were guided through a process to design new services and systems that work at an urban scale, are beneficial to the city, and are plausible by 2030.

The workshop began with ethnographic research and ended with each of the teams producing a video prototype. All of that in just five days. Every moment was carefully choreographed.

K2 process

Each team focused on one aspect of urban life: home, mobility, community, learning, work, and peace of mind. They were asked to explore how these themes could be impacted by a set of technologies including robotics, artificial intelligence, and smart materials. This was balanced with human needs, as expressed in a manifesto initiated by Dash Marshall and refined during the workshop.

We’ve documented the process and outcomes of this workshop in in extensive detail on Medium. Immediately following the workshop was a public symposium, which has also been documented in a publication titled ‘K2 Dialogues 01 - Envisioning Urban Futures’.

K2 Workshop from above