Tomoya Ota, Kazuya Kawasaki, Kotaro Sano | The Current State of "Designing the Situation to Design"—A Report on "DESIGNEAST IKIKIIKIIKI"
This report examines the recent DESIGNEAST IKIKIIKIIKI event through the perspectives of Tomoya Ota, Kazuya Kawasaki, and Kotaro Sano, focusing on its core philosophy.Summary
This article reports on the DESIGNEAST IKIKIIKIIKI event, held in September 2025 after a nine-year hiatus, featuring discussions with Kazuya Kawasaki and Kotaro Sano, organized by Tomoya Ota. The event centers on DESIGNEAST's enduring tagline, "Designing the Situation to Design," which originated from a critique of commercialization and the desire to move beyond an authoritative design paradigm toward democratization, symbolized by figures like Enzo Mari. The 2025 iteration, themed "IKIKIIKIIKI" (a rich state where opposites coexist), featured a highly popular talk with Mame Kurogouchi designer Maiko Kurogouchi, focusing on co-creation with production sites and establishing reciprocal relationships, contrasting with the star designer image. This was juxtaposed with an exhibition referencing Enzo Mari, highlighting a tension between "co-creative/facilitator" and "leading/leader" designer archetypes. Discussions also touched upon Emmanuel Coccia's philosophical take on design in a "broken world" (non-anthropocentrism) and the importance of "Systemic Design," which integrates tedious, technical tasks into core design practice. The author positions DESIGNEAST as a platform rooted in the specific context of Kitakagaya, favoring "concrete" and "gradual" practices compared to more abstract, radical discussions seen elsewhere, thereby fulfilling its role in designing the very context for design discourse.
(Source：artscape)