Chapter 2
Time Axis Design as an EcoDesign
Method
Kentaro Watanabe, Fumiya Sakamoto, Yusuke Kishita, and Yasushi Umeda
Abstract Time axis design is a design method with which a designer considers
temporal changes of social situation, surrounding environment of design objects,
users (including their values), and design objects. Although some products were
designed with considering temporal changes, the concept of time axis design is not
well organized until now. For clarifying the basic concepts of time axis design, this
paper first illustrates cases of time axis design and extracts indispensable elements
of time axis design. Second, this paper proposes a time axis design support method.
Third, as a case study, this paper illustrates time axis design of umbrella. As a result,
this paper shows that the proposed design method is effective in stimulating a designer
for deriving design ideas.
Keywords Time axis design · Design methodology · Scenario
2.1 Introduction
Since the current manufacturing paradigm cannot get out of the mass production and
mass consumption in correspondence with diversification and expansion of customer
needs, today’s manufacturing industry causes many problems such as sustainability
issues typified by SDGs (United Nations 2015). The conventional design theory
used in today’s manufacturing is not sufficient for these problem because it does not
concern about our values to products. For solving this problem, we study “time axis
design,” which explicitly deals with temporal changes in design (Matsuoka 2012).
K. Watanabe (B) · Y. Kishita
Department of Precision Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo,
Japan
e-mail: watanabe@susdesign.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
F. Sakamoto
Department of Precision Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Nissan
Motor Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
Y. Umeda
Research into Artifacts, Center for Engineering, School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo,
Tokyo, Japan
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Kishita et al. (eds.), EcoDesign and Sustainability I, Sustainable Production, Life Cycle
Engineering and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6779-7_2
19
Time Axis Design as an EcoDesign
Method
Kentaro Watanabe, Fumiya Sakamoto, Yusuke Kishita, and Yasushi Umeda
Abstract Time axis design is a design method with which a designer considers
temporal changes of social situation, surrounding environment of design objects,
users (including their values), and design objects. Although some products were
designed with considering temporal changes, the concept of time axis design is not
well organized until now. For clarifying the basic concepts of time axis design, this
paper first illustrates cases of time axis design and extracts indispensable elements
of time axis design. Second, this paper proposes a time axis design support method.
Third, as a case study, this paper illustrates time axis design of umbrella. As a result,
this paper shows that the proposed design method is effective in stimulating a designer
for deriving design ideas.
Keywords Time axis design · Design methodology · Scenario
2.1 Introduction
Since the current manufacturing paradigm cannot get out of the mass production and
mass consumption in correspondence with diversification and expansion of customer
needs, today’s manufacturing industry causes many problems such as sustainability
issues typified by SDGs (United Nations 2015). The conventional design theory
used in today’s manufacturing is not sufficient for these problem because it does not
concern about our values to products. For solving this problem, we study “time axis
design,” which explicitly deals with temporal changes in design (Matsuoka 2012).
K. Watanabe (B) · Y. Kishita
Department of Precision Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo,
Japan
e-mail: watanabe@susdesign.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
F. Sakamoto
Department of Precision Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Nissan
Motor Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
Y. Umeda
Research into Artifacts, Center for Engineering, School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo,
Tokyo, Japan
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Kishita et al. (eds.), EcoDesign and Sustainability I, Sustainable Production, Life Cycle
Engineering and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6779-7_2
19