Sydney Visit at University of Sydney & University of New South Wales

投稿者:

As networking efforts of eghub, we visited University of New South Wales and University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia in December 2016. The purpose of the visit is to explore possibilities of collaborative research in environmental design with Australian researchers.

University of Sydney  (SU)

Our initial contact with the university was February 2016 when three faculty members of the department of Environmental Design visited SU’s Architecture Department. We toured their facilities and discuss possible joint labs with them.

In our last visit in December 2016, a visiting team consisted of Prof. Tanoue, Dr. Inoue, Mr. Iwamoto, and Tani. We further discussed more specific plans for joint studio with Mr. Michael Muir, Senior Lecturer, the director of design in architecture program. He agreed to visit us in Ohashi Campus, Kyushu University in February to observe the senior project presentations in the Department of Environmental Design as a jury, and to participate a eghub program. We have also discussed a joint research on British colonial architecture in Australia, and made an arrangement for a survey in March in Sydney and Melbourne.

University of New South Wales  (UNSW)

The same team also visited the Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales for discussing possible research collaborations. Kyushu University as its international strategy attempts to promote university-wide comprehensive research ties with UNSW since 2012. There has been collaborative research between the two universities in the field of applied mathematics, hydrogen engineering, and agriculture. The university headquarter wishes to expand the breadth of the collaboration and urges the Faculty of Design to start discussion in the field of design. The Faculty decided to send a team to UNSW for exploring possibilities because the Department of Environmental Design has some ties with universities in Australia.

The Department of Environmental Design started communication with Faculty of Built Environment through e-mails in October 2016, and made an arrangement of a visit to UNSW in December. A discussion meeting at the Faculty of Built Environment was held on 8 December with 7 faculty members of UNSW and the four visiting members. An abbreviated agenda of the meeting includes:

  • An introduction of the purpose of the visit by the visiting team
  • Three possible research themes by the visiting team including physiological adaptability, British colonial architecture, and provision of low-cost housing in developing countries.
  • Replies and questions by UNSW
  • More discussions on the proposed themes

As a result, we agreed to continue our discussions, and exchange more specific information. Of the three possible research themes, UNSW expressed interest in physiological adaptation and we will further explore the possibility. Some of the participants see the potential of low-cost housing in developing countries. Therefore, Mr. Iwamoto and Dr. Scott Hawken agreed to exchange more ideas to materialize this idea as a specific research in Cambodia. Dr. Hawken agreed to visit Fukuoka in February, and he did.

We did not find possible collaborators for the study of

British colonial architecture in Australia at this meeting. But, we will discuss this matter again when we return to Australia in March for an actual survey of colonial architecture.