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日本語

The Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred on the 11th of March 2011 gave us a great shock and was a source of deep sorrow. The scars still remain vivid in the afflicted area. Quick reconstruction and restoration for this unprecedented earthquake as well as developing disaster-resistant buildings and regions are important issues for the future development of Japan.

Meanwhile, in the future, our society is expected to experience resource constraints and depletion due to the environmental changes caused by global warming, such as reduction in energy consumption and lack of water and food. Furthermore, Japanese society has to reconstruct its social systems, buildings, and the maintenance of social infrastructure, while addressing the declining birthrate and aging population.

In order to respond to such social demands we must face many challenges, such as developing flexible and strong disaster resistant buildings and regions that enable people to live safely and securely, converting our emphasis on material wealth to focus instead on quality of life, and finally properly managing the construction/social infrastructure and national environment that surrounds us. New technologies are required to realize these goals. In addition, we have to create outstanding engineers who are capable of acquiring the skills we need to forge such a future.

The mission of the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology is to study the technology we will need for designing urban and rural architectural and social infrastructures, and national landscapes as well as managing them as a system to provide a safe, secure, and high-quality living environment for the future. We therefore offer an educational program designed to nurture engineers who possess these valuable skills. In other words, we combine architecture and civil engineering, both traditional academic disciplines, and we are challenging new academic fields that proactively incorporate elements of social science and humanities.

In terms of research, we focus on the basic research essential for the sustainable development of cities and regions, as well as creative research to create new value for the future. The overall goal of our curriculum is to nurture practical and creative engineers and researchers capable of succeeding on the international stage, having expertise in their fields of architecture and social infrastructure, as well as useful design and management capabilities.

For this special issue, we asked four young researchers representing the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology to introduce their latest research. We would like you to learn about the activities of our department through this issue. We believe that this special issue will serve the readers’ interests.