Winner of the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award and other awards at the 15th Kids Design Awards

We are pleased to announce that the "Tempa Tempa Exploration Exhibition," for which we helped create the space, won the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award for Excellence at the 15th Kids Design Awards (sponsored by Kids Design Council), and that the "Uemura Naomi Adventure Museum "Donguri Base" won the Kids Design Award.

Kids Design The award is an award system that covers all products, services, spaces, activities, and research that take into account children and the birth and nurturing of children. The "Design for Children's Creativity and Future" is comprised of three categories: "Design that contributes to the safety and security of children," "Design that opens up children's creativity and the future," and "Design that makes it easy to give birth and raise children." Those that have a method are evaluated.
The Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award, which was awarded to the Exploratory Exhibition Tempa Tempa, is awarded to the best Award works in the fields of "design that contributes to the safety and security of children" and "design that opens up children's creativity and the future."
This is the second time we have received the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award since the 8th award, and the 9th time since last year's Kids Design Award. We would like to express our gratitude to our customers for giving us this opportunity, as well as to everyone who cooperated with us in various processes.

Going forward, we will continue to keep in mind the perspective of those who will use the space and work to create rich spaces that can contribute to our customers' businesses.

15th Kids Design Awards Excellence Award, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award

"Exploratory Exhibition Tempa Tempa"

(Children's Creativity and Future Opening Design and Literacy Category)

Photo: National Ainu Museum, Tanseisha

【overview】
"Exploratory Exhibition Tempa Tempa" is an exhibition corner located in the main exhibition room of the National Ainu Museum where you can experience Ainu culture through hands-on experience. ("Tempa Tempa" means "touch me" in Ainu.)

While kids' corners are usually set up in a corner of the exhibition hall or in a separate room, this time the corners were spread throughout the exhibition hall, with the aim of allowing children to deepen their understanding of Ainu culture by moving between the actual exhibits and the research units around them.
The exhibits range from those that are primarily for viewing (actual materials) to those that are for experiencing, and the "exploratory exhibits" are designed not just to be touched, but to encourage visitors to ask questions about why the exhibits are designed in a certain way, and to find answers to these questions through hands-on learning.

In order to allow visitors to take home a message by moving between the unit experience (exploratory exhibits) and the theme exhibits (real materials), a system was set up where visitors could move between the exhibition rooms by placing pictograms with related numbers on the exhibits. Another feature is that visitors can experience the experience while listening to explanations from educators (educational curators).
The experience stimulates the participants' curiosity, providing an opportunity for mutual communication to unravel the mysteries of Ainu culture, and also inviting them to view actual exhibits.

Reasons for the award
The exhibition is excellent in its structure, which starts with the basic questions of "exploration," such as "Why this shape?" and "Why this material?", and then leads to reasons and answers. By moving between the exploratory exhibits that can be touched and felt without being separated by display cases, such as a dissected salmon model that deepens understanding of Ainu history and culture, kimonos that reproduce the materials and embroidery, and a model of an old house that can be assembled, and the thematic exhibits that focus on real objects, the mechanism that arouses intellectual curiosity by allowing visitors to dig deeper according to their individual interests is worthy of the Excellence Award in the Literacy category.

[Employer]
Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan Affairs/ The Foundation for Ainu Culture

[Award-winning organization]
National Ainu Museum / TANSEISHA Co., Ltd.

[Our Person in Charge]
Creative Direction: Akihiko Wada / Planning: Yuko Onisawa / Design: Masashi Koyama, Ryo Takai /
Models, Molding: Hiroshi Nakai, Yasuhiro Yoshida / Project Management: Eiji Yamazaki, Yoshiki Morikawa, Yasuo Fujiwara

[Comment from the person in charge]
We believe that the exhibition corner that received this award was recognized for its attempt to explore Ainu culture, as well as our efforts in museum management. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone at the museum who worked with us to create it, going through multiple prototypes. We would also like to take this opportunity to express our deep gratitude to everyone at Nitten Co., Ltd., who was in charge of the exhibition construction. We are sure that museums have had many difficulties opening and operating during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we hope that this award will help to convey the museum's efforts and appeal. (Design: Takai Ryo)

【overview】
This playground equipment facility was constructed as part of a PFI project to coincide with the renewal of the Naomi Uemura Adventure Museum in Toyooka City, Hyogo Prefecture, the hometown of adventurer Naomi Uemura. The facility aims to provide a place for local children to develop a spirit of adventure through playing with large net play equipment and outdoor experiences, and to attract a wider range of generations to the museum, thereby helping to pass on Uemura's adventurous spirit and improving the local brand.

[Employer]
Toyooka City

[Award-winning organization]
Advance Co., Ltd. / Nakagawa Construction Co., Ltd. / Kuryu Architects & Associates Co., Ltd. / TANSEISHA Co., Ltd.

[Our Person in Charge]
Planning: Masayuki Fukumoto / Design, Layout: Hisanori Kitamura / Production, Construction: Masayuki Kuramochi

About the Kids Design Awards

Kids Design Award was established in 2007 with the aim of selecting and widely disseminating to society outstanding works from among products, spaces, services, activities and research that fulfill the objectives of "ensuring a safe life for children," "enabling children to grow up with rich sensibility and creativity," and "creating a society in which it is easy to have and raise children." Any design that takes children and parenting into consideration, including designs developed for adults and the general public, is eligible.
https://kidsdesignaward.jp/