Teaching Associate Shirasawa of Faculty of Science and Engineering received the Encouragement Award at the JID AWARD 2025Utsunomiya Campus

At the JID AWARD 2025 award ceremony held at the Living Design Center OZONE (Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo) on Saturday, November 29, 2025, Yoichi Shirasawa, Teaching Associate Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Course at the Department Department of Integrated Science and Engineering and Faculty of Science and Engineering, Teikyo University, received the Encouragement Award in the Next Age category.
The awards, organized by the Japan Interior Designers Association (JID), a public interest incorporated association, aim to recognize outstanding works and achievements, and are divided into three categories: Space, Product, and Next Age. After a first round of judging based on documents and photos submitted online, a second round of judging was conducted based on explanatory panels and actual items, and the Encouragement Award was awarded to the winner from a total of 285 entries.

The winning design, "CN88," is a lounge chair made entirely from bamboo, without the use of metal fittings. It is difficult to bend bamboo's knots or material outward, but by devising a technique for bending it almost evenly regardless of the part or bending direction, it is possible to seamlessly connect the components, resulting in a design that is resistant to distortion and deformation overall. By using this technique to create a multi-layered ring structure for the legs, the design is strong enough for use as furniture, and has a distinctive round-square form. The design of the design was registered with the cooperation of the University's Teikyo Technology Transfer Center, and patent applications have also been filed for the processing method and design structure.
Teaching Associate Shirasawa commented, "While conducting research on the keywords of natural forest resources and industrial products, I focused on the potential of bamboo. Bamboo has advantages such as growing faster than trees and not needing to be replanted, but there are many challenges to using it as a material for industrial products. With demand for bamboo declining, bamboo forests become abandoned, causing new environmental problems. All products are required to be environmentally friendly, from the selection of materials to the production process, recycling, and disposal. As we continue to research the possible uses of bamboo, having our design recognized by winning this award gives us hope for future demand for bamboo."
We look forward to seeing more from Teaching Associate Shirasawa.

Click here for more information on the winning entry "CN88"
For more information about the JID Award 2025, click here.

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