DOOR to ASIA: Creating 'partners' and 'connections' that transcend national, cultural, and linguistic boundaries to tackle regional challenges

DOOR to ASIA is a designer-in-residence program where young designers active across various Asian countries stay in a local region for a set period, gain a deep understanding of local businesses, and create and propose 'communication designs'.

DOOR to ASIA (hereinafter referred to as DTA) began in 2015. It started by building small but solid connections with business operators in the Tohoku region who were hit hard by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
To date, we have created 17 programs together with 97 designers from 24 countries and 48 business operators/local governments.However, due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020, travel restrictions from overseas have continued. Even in such circumstances, with the desire to keep exchanges alive, we have been holding the online program 'Knock! Knock! Open the DOOR to ASIA' since 2021.

What kind of program is 'DOOR to ASIA'?

DTA is a program that aims to realize a better future for regions by using 'design' as a method to address the challenges faced by local businesses, organizing the values they possess together, confirming the path they should take, and building reliable partnerships.

Our goal is to create a platform for mutual learning and support among players who connect the inside and outside of regions, transcending national and sectoral boundaries.

We hope that through design, we can open a small but certain door that leads to the future between business operators and designers.
With that thought in mind, we named it 'DOOR to ASIA,' meaning a 'door' that opens toward 'Asia' and the 'future'.

Participating designers from Japan and abroad stay for several days, immersing themselves in the work and lives of the business operators, and strive to understand with all five senses what kind of place the operators are in, what thoughts they hold, and what they are aiming for.

At the same time, the host business operators and local residents also strive to understand each other's backgrounds and the philosophies that form their backbone with maximum enthusiasm.
By doing this, we can produce designs filled with love that could never be created through superficial interviews about challenges.On the final day of the program, the designers, who have come to know the lives and life philosophies of the business operators, think about what the right design is for that operator and deliver a proposal filled with love.
As a result, deep understanding and empathy for the other party are born, which also leads to lifelong, family-like relationships between the business operators and the designers, who are external players.

The cycle of 'trust' born between local business operators and designers

In regions including agricultural, mountain, and fishing villages, there are places where not only physical things like historical heritage and agricultural, forestry, and fishery products, but also wisdom rooted in people's lives, techniques cultivated over many years, and handed-down history and culture are still cherished.

However, in many cases, these are so taken for granted by the people living in the region that they do not recognize their value, or they do not know how they should utilize them themselves.
Also, there are cases where budget scale, language, and the ability to conceive and communicate ideas become barriers, making it difficult to develop collaborations with the outside or activities that leverage their own strengths.

For business operators facing such problems and challenges, DTA will be an opportunity to reconfirm the strengths of their businesses and products. Also, by having partners in various places who deeply understand them, it becomes a trigger to imagine a future that was not on the extension of what they had before.

For both the region/business operator and the designer

For business operators, DTA is a program where they can have their potential proposed in the form of design. Also, there is much learning for the participating designers as well.
Because young designers active in various Asian countries participate, they can build connections between designers across borders, and it is also an opportunity to practically learn the role of design in 'regional revitalization' and 'natural disasters,' which are common challenges in Asian countries.

Also, after the program ends, many business operators say, 'The DTA designer understood us better than anyone we have ever met.'
People who were initially skeptical, especially those who were inward-looking, sometimes become like best friends across national and language barriers, and participating overseas designers sometimes introduce the project in their own words as their own project, saying, 'I want to implement a DTA project in my own country too.'In this way, the seeds born from DTA sprout, and a cycle is being created where they become new triggers across borders and language barriers.

What is the value created by DOOR to ASIA?

DTA is a project where people of different cultures, languages, and generations gather for a common purpose and challenge themselves to exert their own power to the maximum to achieve the results imposed on each of them.
In fact, through DTA, we feel that building 'solid connections' between individuals, rather than using general mass marketing methods, is actually a shortcut and can produce solid results.

The process of understanding the other party, supporting them with all one's might, and conveying it through the method of 'design' is not just about solving problems, but I think it is a 'place for building connected relationships'.

When participating in DTA, you can feel the moment when the hearts of all participants, including the management staff, are moved.
For example, the expression on the face of a Japanese local business operator who had never had the opportunity to talk to foreigners and thought it was impossible to objectively understand their own work and propose designs, at the moment they were impressed by the sincere attitude of a young overseas designer and witnessed an unexpected level of understanding.Designers who communicate through an interpreter and, despite having spent only a few days together, have their power to care for the other person strengthened, and tears naturally overflow.
The figure of an interpreter/coordinator who, while struggling with how to interpret and convey the strong thoughts of local business operators to overseas designers, grows in a short period of time.

Through DTA, you can encounter a surprisingly large number of moments where 'people do something for people.' I think such shared experiences create relationships where people think, 'I want to continue supporting them' and 'I want to stay connected'.

Thinking about your own role for the sake of someone else

There are partners in various parts of the world who feel that your challenges are their own, and everyone works together with full effort for that person's sake. Even after participating in DTA, such processes continue, and connections and communities are born where people think, 'I want to see you again, I want to do something together again.'

Started in Tohoku in 2015, DTA has conducted a total of 16 programs so far, working with 97 designers from 24 countries and 48 businesses/local governments.
About half of these businesses have continued to work with the participating designers in some form after the program ended, and new projects are being born as overseas designers want to implement DTA in their own countries as well.

What supports these movements is the participants' 'desire to do' and their energy. And to sustain relationships, the feeling of 'Thinking of you' is necessary.
Even if visible results are not produced immediately, it is important for hearts to connect with hearts.At DTA, we believe there is meaning in people who can share that feeling coming together to create something.

Held online during the COVID-19 pandemic: 'Knock! Knock!'

Now that travel between countries has become difficult due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people's awareness and information tend to become inward-looking, and I feel that the possibilities for the future are narrowing.
However, precisely because we are in such an era, I think we can create a better future by sharing our respective fields, positions, trial and error, and challenges, thereby gaining hints and influencing each other.I have also come to think that gathering in one place is not the only way to find meaning.

The online event 'Knock! Knock!', which started with these thoughts, is attempting to create a way of interaction that transcends national borders in response to natural disasters and social issues, with all parties involved.
Rather than broad information at the national level, the worries, joys, and trial and error that individuals are facing will surely encourage someone and serve as a reference for moving forward.That is why I want more people to hear about it, and I also hope that these interactions will continue and lead to a better life for someone.