Natural & Creative Living Lab: Studies on Creative Practice for Supporting Natural and Creative Living
Natural & Creative Living Lab: Studies on Creative Practice for Supporting Natural and Creative Living
The purpose of Iba Lab is “To contribute toward a future where people can live more lively, by creating new ideas, concepts, methods, and media through academic research on new approaches.” We conduct academic research using new ideas that are unrestricted by the boundaries of existing academic disciplines or common sense. In addition, we develop new ideas, concepts, methods, and media that will solve current problems and improve the future. We will work with diverse actors to disseminate the results of our research and contribute to the realization of a future in which people can live more lively.
The vision of Iba Lab is “The creative society where people can live their life more naturally, creatively, and delightfully.” Prof. Iba has been advocating that the changes over the past 100 years should be viewed in terms of a “Consumer Society,” an “Information Society,” and a “creative society.” In the consumer society, people considered the purchase and enjoyment of goods and services, such as home appliances, and cars, to be essential to the richness of their lives. With the advent of the information society, the center of gravity of interest has shifted to communication, and good communication and relationships now symbolize the “richness” of life and living. Furthermore, in a creative society (partially underway today), people are creating their own things, ideas, methods, systems, societies, and ways of being and living, and the degree to which they are involved in “creating” for themselves is considered to be the “richness” of their lives and livelihoods.
Prof. Iba proposes the era of “creation” to be a future where people live more in harmony with nature and each person lives naturally like a human being, rather than within an artificial future encumbered by technology. At the Iba Lab, we aim for such a future of “Natural and Creative Living,” and are engaged in practical academic research to support the realization of a life that is a combination of “Natural,” “Creative,” and “Delightful.”
The Mission of Iba Lab is “To Inquire about principles hidden in practices with great quality and support practices of people based on the discoveries.”
How can we achieve “living naturally and creatively”? We must consider each area of practice in our daily lives and social activities. Therefore, the Iba Lab is engaged in academic research to clarify the reality of “Natural and Creative Living” in each practice, such as learning, work, child-rearing, caregiving, and life planning, and expressing it in the form of “pattern language” for supporting people who want to practice it.
At Iba Lab, we are predominantly engaged in creating pattern language as a way to support creative practice; however, we also conduct research on creating workshops, new methods and tools, and creative communities.