The Fixperts @ KIT projects by third year product design students from 2015 and 2016 have been selected for display in the United States as part of the Future of Fixing Exhibition at the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design in Asheville, North Carolina. The exhibition runs from September 2, 2016 – January 7, 2017

Fixperts – Bicycle Transport for Hayashi’s

Fixperts – Hanako containers for Nobuko

Fixperts – Rice Trolley for Mr Kitagawa

Fixperts – Hingehog for Mr. Shikata

Fixperts – Waste Sorting System for the Kyoto Institute of Technology

Fixperts – SUNOKO for Nurses at Healthcare Center

About the Future of Fixing Exhibition
The Future of Fixing was originally curated by Daniel Charny/ From-Now-On for the Łódź Design Festival in Poland in 2014 under the auspices of Brave Fixed World, where it was shown as part of the British Council’s Maker Library Network. The exhibition has now made “open source” and a version of the show Marilyn Zapf and expanded for display at CCCD.
http://www.craftcreativitydesign.org/the-future-of-fixing

About the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design (CCCD)
Founded in 1996, The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design (CCCD) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the field of craft through fostering new ideas, funding craft scholarship, and backing the next generation of makers, curators and critics. CCCD has developed a strong national reputation as a significant resource for artists, museums, academic researchers, university students and arts organizations. Each year, CCCD administers over a quarter million dollars in grants to those working in the craft field.
http://www.craftcreativitydesign.org

Fixperts – Hanako containers for Nobuko

Fixperts and KYOTO Design Lab
Fixperts co-founder Professor Daniel Charny of Kingston University ran a workshop at KIT in February 2015 on the theme of Making and Materials.
Following the workshop, KIT’s third year product design students took up the theme of ‘Invisible People’ – the maintenance, security, and cleaning staff on KIT’s campus that keep it in running order but whose working lives could be made easier with a little design help. In 2016, the focus was ‘Silver Workers’, those working long beyond the official retirement age.
The aim of the project has been to help students understand how to find design opportunities in what appear to be unpromising contexts, where small design interventions can have an enormous beneficial effect. The students had to uncover those opportunities, learn basic ethnography and work directly with those invisible people who could benefit from their design expertise. Importantly, they had to communicate the design process in its complexity and how they arrived at their final design ideas in a four-minute video that told the story of their creative journey.

Kyoto Institute of Technology
Since 1899, the Kyoto Institute of Technology (KIT) has pioneered practical education in design and engineering in Japan and is known for its research excellence in the materials, life, bio-medical and information sciences and fibre technology.
https://www.kit.ac.jp/en/

Kyoto Design Lab – Innovation by Design
KYOTO Design Lab. (D-lab.) was created in 2014 by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to deliver its strategic vision for innovation and excellence in higher education in architecture and design.
D-Lab’s mission is to harness KIT’s research expertise and external networks using design innovation to address pressing social and economic issues and underscore the key mediating role design can play in interdisciplinary projects.
https://www.d-lab.kit.ac.jp/

Exhibition

Exhibition