Sustainability Engineering on Architecture and Urban Environments

The Ikaga Research Laboratory of Keio University’s System Design Engineering Department conducts research on the core issue of sustainability in terms of both architecture and urban planning. The group examines how this informs both the design of domestic environments to actively promote health, and urban environments conducive to a low-carbon approach. Currently the lab is focusing on three main themes: health, intellectual productivity, and low-carbon.
Q.There are lots of things we have begun to understand in terms of health. For example, take the influence of the homes we spend every day in. They are cold in winter and hot in summer. The cold can cause elevated blood pressure, which in turn can cause lots of diseases. And heat can make it harder to sleep, which we know is responsible for health issues as well. In our lab we are working on ways to measure blood pressure and sleep, or use ECGs to monitor the autonomic nervous system. We team up with medical students, visit people’s homes, and ask them to aid our research by allowing us to perform measurements.
As part of these efforts, the Ikaga lab is currently involved in a research project entitled, “Creating Houses and Communities for Healthy Long Lives.” The town of Yusuhara in Kochi prefecture has the same ratio of elderly in the total population that Japan as a whole can expect in 40 years given current graying trends. The lab is now gathering data and performing demonstration experiments in Yusuhara about how hot or cold people’s houses are, how that affects health, and various differences among towns.
Q.Aside from health-related topics, we are also busy researching intellectual productivity. For example, take elementary schools, junior-high schools, colleges, or even private research labs and office buildings…Poorly designed environments can inhibit the learning of students or the efficiency of the workers. The Ikaga lab is working toward figuring out how architectural environments affect intellectual productivity. We use experiments with subjects as well as questionnaire surveys of actual children and office workers to discover exactly what kinds of environments inhibit what kinds of learning or efficient work.
Another theme for the lab is creating a low-carbon society. For example, what can architecture alone do to achieve designs that will reduce CO2, and to what extent? Measures the lab studies include ways of using insulation and drafts to increase energy efficiency, as well as how to use solar panels to reduce CO2.
Q.We are also examining issues on the urban scale. What kind of urban planning can national or local governments use to reduce overall urban CO2, and by how much? This is a significant policy question. For example--, we are researching methodologies for estimating effects of various urban planning options on cumulative CO2 output until the year 2050.
This form of research requires basic knowledge of fields as diverse as environmental science, medicine, and economics, among others. Drawing on such broad expertise enables more perceptive insights on various issues facing us. The end result is fruitful research on sustainable architecture and urban design that will enable our children and grandchildren to enjoy the same abundance we do.