The Faculty of Design at h_da has cultivated a lively exchange with the Department of Design at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, for almost twenty years. At the initiative of Professor Madoka Yuki, Professor Tom Philipps and Professor Tino Melzer and with the support of h_da’s International Office, a first joint workshop recently took place in Darmstadt: over the course of a good week, from 15 to 22 October 2024, the participants immersed themselves in “Origami Engineering and Product Design”. 

Seven students from Kyushu University and eleven h_da students gathered at h_da’s Faculty of Design on Mathildenhöhe. The aim of the workshop was to teach the fundamentals of origami geometry, introduce various design tools and familiarise the students with approaches for creating origami structures as well as the respective materials and working methods. The specific task for the four student teams was to use origami folding techniques to build an emergency shelter from cardboard for disaster scenarios. The results were presented in the closing session on 22 October.

The workshop was headed by Professor Wataru Saito and Genki Fujita. Wataru Saito is a researcher and lecturer in the mathematical and geometric principles of origami and their application to real structures and products. Genki Fujita is an industrial designer and head of the Digital Workshop at the Department of Design, Kyushu University.