Villa Kujoyama x Dutch Embassy:
Kyoto Design Forum
Villa Kujoyama organized Forum Design Kyoto in collaboration with the Dutch Embassy, acting as a satellite event to the Paris Design Forum that was held from 16 to 18 November in Paris. Through a series of keynote lectures and an incubation session, speakers provided ideas on how to innovate and shape urban environments.
Dealing with changes in our society through innovation was the overall theme of the day, utilising Kyoto as the backdrop and case study. Kyoto is dealing with social issues such as an aging population and a decreasing birthrate, coupled with an increase in tourists visiting the city. One of the main challenges is how to be innovative without losing tradition. Tomás Van Gorp, Art & Economics student at University of the Arts Utrecht, gave a keynote lecture on “Diverse Design” and Giovanni Innella, alumni of Design Academy Eindhoven, participated in the incubation session.
Designer
Tomás Van Gorp
Tomás van Gorp is an Art & Economics student from the University of the Arts Utrecht and a project manager / creative scientist at Bureau Design Digitale Zaken Amsterdam. Tomás uses themes in his study and work such as: what is the impact you want to create? Are you asking yourself the right questions? Through design-driven R&D method design thinking, he tackles multiple challenges and sees where design can create meaningful impact. By stressing the importance of humans in the R&D process, he tries to show how organizations can create real value. Tomás stayed in Japan for his graduate project where he conducted research on how design can help to create more liveable cities. After returning to the Netherlands he will subsequently implement this data in the Netherlands through various test cases.
Researcher and lecturer
Giovanni Innella
Born in Torino, 1982. He studied Industrial Design at the Politecnico of Torino (Italy), Conceptual Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven (the Netherlands) and obtained a PhD in Design Critique from Northumbria University (UK). In his career, Giovanni exhibited at the International Design Biennale of Saint-Etienne the Fuorisalone of Milan and the Museum of Arts of the XXI century (MAXXI) in Rome among other venues. His work is part of the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (the Netherlands). Giovanni is currently based in Tokyo where he runs his own practice and occupies the position of an Assistant Professor at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology (Tokyo Metropolitan University).
www.villakujoyama.jp/forum-design-kyoto/
