RYO YAMAZAKI

CEO of studio-L, Social entrepreneur,
Community Designer,
Chief Creative Officer of Community Design at the Tohoku University of Art and Design and a trustee of Maggie’s Centre Tokyo

Born in Aichi, in 1973. After the university, he worked in SEN, inc., where he developed his skills and knowledge in landscape design advised by Mr. Shosuke Miyake, a founder of this firm. As well, he learnt social organization and relationship management from Dr. Fusayo Asano there.

He founded studio-L in 2005 and he has continuously offered the innovative solutions for the local problems by inspiring and empowering the local communities. He advocates the importance of “Community Design” which he defined as the empowerment of the locals through design to make them happy. His major projects contain planning workshops, making comprehensive plans and park management. In recent years he has been involved with social welfare and healthcare’s issues in Japan which helps designing care system to support the elderly in neighbourhoods and social education which helps the local community to learn and tackle their local issues related to their lives.

His books:

  • Community Design (2011)

  • Social Design Atlas(2012)

  • The era of Community Design (2012)

  • Happiness theory for the local area (2012)

  • Furusato wo genki ni suru shigoto (The job to make your hometown healthy) (2015)

  • Community Design no genryu (The origin of Community Design) (2016)

  • Shukuju suru nihon (Fulling Japan) (2016)

  • Care suru machi no design (2018) (Design for the caring town)

His lecture:

He travels throughout Japan to provide more than 150 lectures annually to local communities, schools and universities, NPO/NGO, local authorities such as Hiroshima Prefectural Office and Japanese government including Ministry of Internal affairs and communications and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

In relation to UK or John Ruskin, he has given the lecture at Japan Foundation in London in 2015, The Victorian Studies Society of Japan and the Association of Ruskin Library in 2016.

He recently has been appointed to a member of committee at the Design Centre in Taitung, Taiwan. He also provided the numerous numbers of lectures in South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore.