RCA-IIS Design Lab: Treasure-hunting in Tokyo

Funded by: Japan Government

Principal Investigator: Professor Miles Pennington  

Collaborators: Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), the University of Tokyo 

How can expertise in innovation combine with cutting-edge technological research to produce the products and services – and the designers and engineers – of the future?  

The RCA-IIS Tokyo Design Lab is a research collaboration between the RCA and the University of Tokyo, launched on the 20th December 2016. Tokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) is a research institute covering almost all the engineering disciplines. The new RCA-IIS Tokyo Design Lab brings together creatives, scientists and engineers, working together to develop meaningful and deployable innovations and to kick-start the careers of a new generation of innovators. By bringing in graduates from the RCA, the Design Lab will create a new diversity of thought and culture, providing a melting pot for the exchange of ideas. 

Working together in small research project groups – MicroLabs – they will develop new insights in what is possible when the two disciplinary and national cultures work together. The first MicroLab with researchers from the two institutions began work in early 2017 and is planned to be the first of many.  

This is one of several School of Design collaborations with key Japanese institutions, including the Global Innovation Design programme’s work with Keio University’s Media Design Graduate School, studies of interdisciplinary innovation with Kyushu University in Fukuoka, and research collaborations with Kochi University of Technology. 

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RCA Launches Design Lab in Collaboration with University of Tokyo (news article)