Environmental Design
Practical Study of Comprehensive Design for the Natural and Social Environments
An educational framework integrative of the humanities and sciences, incorporating both natural and social science, provides students with foundations of practical knowledge and skills relevant to comprehensive design for the natural and social environments.
This curriculum serves to cultivate human resources equipped to grasp the crises facing regional communities and cooperatively engage in the building of sustainable regional communities where people and nature coexist in harmony.
Environmental Sustainability Course
This course guides students to cultivate the sensibility to envision desirable relationships between the natural environment and society, as well as to acquire knowledge and skills relevant to the investigation, planning, and management processes required to make such visions reality. Students equip themselves with a number of different abilities through cross-sectional, practical education to learn knowledge and skills in a range of special fields related to the natural environment. Specifically, multifaceted inquiry skills giving them the ability to consider and examine relationships between the natural environment and society from a variety of different viewpoints; problem identification skills giving them the ability to discern key issues from among diverse relationships; conception skills giving them the ability to map out pathways to the resolution of such issues; and practical implementation skills giving them the ability to effectively adapt such pathways to the context of regional communities.
Regional Design and Disaster Prevention Course
In Ehime Prefecture, there is apprehension concerning the possible occurrence of catastrophic natural disasters such as the Nankai Trough Earthquake and the intensification of environmental problems. At the same time, factors such as globalization, the declining birthrate, and aging of the population have contributed to concerns about the decline of regional communities. Accordingly, the question of what these communities might do to survive in vital, dynamic forms has been a topic of discussion.
Students in this course participate in practical on-site training in community development and regional disaster prevention themselves, cultivating practical knowledge and skills through their engagement in practical education with these activities. Specialized education in relevant fields of social science additionally equips them with design skills and policy management skills needed to contribute to the comprehensive resolution of regional issues.
Major Research Themes
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Considering Optimal Relationships Between People and Nature
Human happiness depends wholly on the environment and on other living things. As such, environmental design takes on the vital role of making reconsiderations of relationships between people and nature while facing the challenges of natural disasters and of man-made disasters such as climate change. The period from now through 2030 holds the key to the realization of a sustainable society in the days ahead.
In the Department of Environmental Design, diverse faculty members engage in research from the global scale down to regional communities, applying concepts, wisdom, and technologies from widely varied fields of specialization, including disaster prevention, community development, environmental policy, Global Environmental Studies, landscape design, art and games, geography, and geographic information systems (GIS). Students will undoubtedly find an optimal fit with their interests here, from intriguing conundrums to issues they can contribute to themselves in concrete ways.
Please come join forces with us at the Department of Environmental Design. Let’s work together to imagine and realize design for a fun future in which people and nature coexist and mutually flourish!