Design Strategist. Eisuke Tachikawa, one of the members of the basic plan for the Japan Pavilion at the Expo '70 Osaka, uses this unfamiliar term as his title. The book "Evolution Thoughts", which was released by a publisher on a small island in Shimane Prefecture, has sold over 10,000 copies. Mr. Tachikawa says that the round trip of "mutation" and "adaptation" evolves people's thinking. We talked with HERO X Editor-in-Chief Yukisato Sugihara about the design skills that will be needed in the future.
Sugihara: From here, I would like to talk a little about Mr. Tachikawa's book "evolutionary thinking". The good thing about this book is that the paper is good (laughs). First of all, even before reading the book, I thought that we were designing the posture of reading the book.
Tachikawa: As an author and designer, I think it's a good design. Somehow, it puts out that kind of aura too much, making it a difficult book to get into, and it's a high hurdle to buy. I like it though. This paper is comfortable to read.
Sugihara: I didn't know the publisher that published this book, but this publisher is also interesting.
Tachikawa: It must be a publisher that no one knows about. The publisher is located in a remote area in Ama-cho, Shimane, a town on the Oki Islands that can be reached by taking a ferry for two to three hours from Sakaiminato, just beyond Yonago. Although the island has a population of only about 2,200, it is launching groundbreaking initiatives one after another in fields such as education and regional revitalization. Especially in the field of education, there is a lot of attention, and I am planning to go to a local high school next week to take a class called "Education Attractiveness". It's a boarding school, and some of the students come to this school as an island student. We have a public cram school, and the deviation value and magnification are very high.
I chose this activity because I strongly sympathized with the way the island should be.
Tachikawa: I am also working on a project in Cambodia, and I am also on the board of directors for a university in Cambodia. The hand is using a smartphone, and the tuk-tuk is an EV that generates solar power. It is much further than the center of Japan. The so-called jumping frog phenomenon (*1) is happening, but it's because EVs are cheaper than gasoline, or because they don't have electricity, they have to rely on sunlight.
(*1) Rapid development of underdeveloped areas through the introduction of cutting-edge technology
Which is the future we are aiming for, in the countryside or in the city? The fact that there is nothing means that the killer path that allows new mechanisms to pass through.
A few people change from the frontier. If a local person overcomes a problem in front of them in a certain place, there may be millions of people around the world who share that problem. In that sense, I think that creativity education is one of the issues.
The story of creativity is so essential to the world, and it is directly connected to the meaning of our lives. Human creativity is a very important theme. Despite this, there is no way to train creativity, so many people give up like shattered band members.
I want to change that, which is what I am working on with the education of "evolutionary thinking."
Sugihara: Certainly, when I read your book, I thought to myself, "Why aren't there things like 'creation' in addition to mathematics, Japanese language, science, and social studies in education?"
Tachikawa: As the title of the book suggests, evolutionary thinking is a round trip between mutation and adaptation.
In order to "mutate" and deviate from the status quo, we must destroy our own biases. There is a common pattern in how to destroy them. Evolution and inventions in the natural world are not the result of special powers possessed only by those who have reached that point.
It is important to understand the essential relationships between things, and scientists have worked hard throughout human history. It is "adaptation" that you should learn such a method honestly. In other words, the general concept of "evolutionary thinking" is that living organisms evolve on their own by going back and forth between "mutation" and "adaptation", and in fact it is our creativity.
Sugihara: Nowadays, the position of CDO (Chief Design Officer) is expanding in corporate management overseas as well. Do you think there will be more CDOs in Japan in the future?
Tachikawa: The world is leading the way, and Japan is lagging behind in adopting it. I believe that there will be more and more companies around the world where designers become CDOs.
About 10 years ago, I had a conversation with a Samsung vice president who used to be a designer. . Even in Japan, there are designers who are very involved in the transformation of companies themselves from a design perspective.
Sugihara: I wonder if the ability of the designer who is going to be the CDO will also be questioned. What are your thoughts on updates on the designer side?
Tachikawa: Designers must also have a management language. In evolutionary thinking, adaptive powers of observation are absolutely necessary, and we should understand that the field we are in is not the design industry. Needless to say, there is no such thing as a “design industry”.
Sugihara: That's true. Please stop calling it the "design industry".
Tachikawa: The power of design needs to be verbalized and conveyed to the other party based on how it can be used to influence society. You also need to understand its value and have the ability to put it into practice.
If you are an excellent designer, it is said that the ability to plan and to talk about the effectiveness of the design as a business is an implicit ability, and it is this kind of observation that designers must hone. , never came out in the education so far. I think that her missing piece is relatively large.
Sugihara: Exactly. He is often called a designer with only his specialty in a categorized field, and his image is a bit different from his CDO in the world. It's subjective, but I think designers need to keep learning and updating a huge amount of knowledge.
Tachikawa: Rather than admiring the symbol “designer,” I want people to think, “I want to do this because of what a designer can do.” Or, "I want to become a designer because I want to master this field, which I don't think current designers can do yet." think. And the same is true for doctors and firefighters.
Sugihara: Interesting. After all, in order to discuss the evolution of firefighters 10 or 20 years from now, it is necessary to start by dissecting what kind of work firefighters are doing now and what they are doing. It's exciting to think about what other occupations exist in common areas and how to compile them.
Tachikawa: I thought, "I want to be a firefighter." A conclusion such as "I realized that I have to learn" is fine.
Sugihara: Great! ``If there is a robot, there is no need for a human to enter the fire, so we would like to improve the fire extinguisher that the robot throws to be more durable.''
Tachikawa: Yes, that's fine. When you start from the end, the means become free. If you aim for a means, it's different to aim for a job title that has the means as a name.
I think that children are the most important thing to create the future. In the future, we will also focus on educational activities to spread this evolutionary thinking.
Read related articles