Our History
More than Two Decades of Designing, Learning and Living with Bamboo
Bamboo Design Workshop grew out of a long-term movement in Kitakyushu that brought together bamboo forest conservation, environmental education, community participation, architectural design and hands-on making.
What began as local satoyama and bamboo forest conservation activities developed into a continuing platform where citizens, students, researchers, architects and international participants could explore new relationships between bamboo, people and the built environment.
Over more than two decades, the activities have evolved from forest conservation and bamboo crafts to experimental structures, design workshops and international collaboration.
2002 — The Beginning: The 1st Bamboo Design Workshop
19–22 August 2002
The First Bamboo Design Workshop was held in Kitakyushu as part of the environmental preservation activities initiated around the Kitakyushu Science and Research Park.
The workshop explored how bamboo, traditionally regarded as a familiar element of the satoyama landscape, could be rediscovered as a material for design and everyday living.
This marked the beginning of a long-term journey connecting satoyama conservation, bamboo utilization and architectural design.
Theme:
Designing to Live with Bamboo
The wider bamboo programme that year also included cleaning the Egawa River using a bamboo raft, bamboo-charcoal making and an international bamboo-forest preservation activity.
2003 — From Workshop to Community Conservation
Bamboo activities expanded from design into sustained satoyama conservation.
On 9 March 2003, a Satoyama Preservation activity was held, followed later that year by a bamboo-charcoal-making programme.
From around this period, bamboo-forest conservation increasingly became a continuous citizen-participation activity rather than an occasional event. The Kitakyushu Biotope Network Group states that its satoyama biodiversity and landscape conservation activities began in 2001 and that monthly citizen-participation conservation activities have continued since 2003.
2004 — Bamboo as Part of Sustainable Community Design
From 12–14 November 2004, the programme developed into a Green Town Planning Workshop in the Kitakyushu Science and Research Park.
The relationship between bamboo conservation and the broader design of sustainable communities became an increasingly important part of the activities.
At the same time, regular bamboo-forest maintenance was established. Records indicate that, from January 2004, volunteers worked on the bamboo forests around the Kitakyushu Science and Research Park on the second Saturday of most months. Cut bamboo was reused for purposes including soil-making materials and bamboo charcoal.
2005 — The 2nd Bamboo Design Workshop: Shelter 3×3×3
3–6 November 2005
The Second Bamboo Design Workshop, entitled “Shelter 3×3×3,” moved the programme toward architectural experimentation.
Participants explored bamboo not simply as a natural resource or craft material, but as a material capable of defining structure, shelter and space.
The same year also included a bamboo craft course for children and an environmental activity using bamboo fishing poles on the Egawa River, demonstrating the programme’s combination of design, education and community participation.
2006 — Experimenting with Bamboo in the Environment
Bamboo-related activities diversified considerably during 2006.
They included:
- water purification of Dokai Bay using bamboo;
- crossing Dokai Bay on a bamboo raft;
- a bamboo lantern event along the historic Nagasaki Road;
- bamboo craft courses for children.
These activities expanded the meaning of bamboo design beyond architectural objects, demonstrating its potential in environmental improvement, cultural events, education and community-making.
2007 — Bamboo Design Enters International Academic Exchange
Community bamboo preservation and children’s bamboo craft activities continued during 2007.
At the same time, the experiences accumulated in Kitakyushu entered the international academic discussion on modern bamboo architecture. Research related to the programme was presented in the proceedings of the First International Conference on Modern Bamboo Structures, including:
Bamboo Design Workshop: Expressions with Bamboo Material, by H. Nakamura and B. Dewancker, and
Small Bamboo Structure Made by Architecture Students at the University of Kitakyushu, Japan, by B. Dewancker.
This represented an important transition from local practice to internationally shared design knowledge.
2008 — Education and International Participation
Bamboo craft courses continued throughout 2008, including programmes for children and, in November, a Bamboo Craft Course for Foreign Students.
The activities increasingly connected environmental conservation with international education.
In fiscal year 2008, the Kitakyushu Biotope Network Group’s Bamboo Forest Conservation and Utilization Project involved 341 participants. Activities included bamboo forest thinning, children’s bamboo craft, bamboo lanterns, large kadomatsu installations and design workshops.
2009 — Exploring Bamboo Roof Construction
25–27 February 2009
As part of the Bamboo Forest Conservation and Utilization Project, a Bamboo Design Workshop was held to investigate methods for constructing roofs using bamboo.
Local residents participated directly in building the bamboo roof, further strengthening the workshop’s characteristic combination of design education and community-based construction.
This is an especially valuable entry for your website because it provides a clear bridge between the early Shelter 3×3×3 experiments and later architectural bamboo structures.
2010–2014 — From Events to a Continuing Satoyama Practice
During the following years, bamboo-related activities became embedded in a broader programme of community-based environmental conservation.
Rather than focusing exclusively on large design workshops, the work emphasized the continuous maintenance of bamboo forests, environmental education and the practical reuse of harvested bamboo.
The long-term character of the initiative is significant: the Kitakyushu Biotope Network Group reports that citizen-led conservation has continued monthly since 2003.
For the website, I would therefore not invent individual “Bamboo Design Workshop 2010, 2011…” entries unless additional archival photographs or documents can be found. It is stronger to describe this period as a phase of continuous community practice.
2015 — Heisei Taketori Densetsu
By 2015, the continuing bamboo-forest programme was documented under the name:
Heisei Taketori Densetsu — Bamboo Forest Conservation Activities
During fiscal year 2015, nine bamboo-forest conservation sessions were carried out between May 2015 and March 2016. The programme involved 321 participants, together with approximately 100 people participating in monitoring trials for products made from harvested bamboo.
Activities included:
- bamboo forest management;
- experimental use of harvested bamboo;
- development of aotake-fumi bamboo foot exercisers;
- environmentally conscious kadomatsu construction;
- environmental education for schoolchildren.
This phase demonstrated how bamboo conservation could become part of a circular relationship between forest management, material use and community education.
2016–2017 — Continuing Community-Based Bamboo Education
Bamboo forest conservation and children’s bamboo-making activities continued as part of the collaboration between the University of Kitakyushu and the Kitakyushu Biotope Network Group.
University records describe bamboo craft classes for elementary and junior-high-school students as well as continued maintenance of both managed and unmanaged bamboo forests around the Kitakyushu Science and Research Park.
The emphasis remained on learning through direct engagement with the landscape and material.
2018 — Bamboo Design Workshop Becomes a Major International Event
10–20 June 2018
The University of Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu
The Bamboo Design Workshop 2018 marked a major expansion of the programme.
Official Japan National Tourism Organization statistics record the event in Kitakyushu from 10–20 June 2018, with a total of 410 participants, including 110 international participants.
Participants developed and constructed bamboo pavilions, bringing together architectural design, material experimentation and international collaboration.
The workshop is also independently recorded in the academic profile of a University of Kitakyushu participant as the AILCD Bamboo Design Workshop 2018, with a bamboo pavilion project.
This can therefore be presented as one of the major milestones in the history of Bamboo Design Workshop.
2019 — Recognition of the Long-Term Satoyama Movement
The continuous bamboo and satoyama activities received wider recognition in 2019.
The Kitakyushu Biotope Network Group received an Excellence Award in the ESD category of the 1st Environmental Capital Kitakyushu SDGs Awards for its satoyama conservation programme “Heisei Taketori Densetsu.”
This recognition demonstrated that the bamboo activities had evolved beyond individual workshops into a long-term model connecting:
environmental conservation × education × citizens × university × sustainable development.
One JNTO dataset also contains an event titled “Bamboo Design Workshop 2019”, but it lists the location as Kobe and does not provide enough evidence to establish that this was a direct continuation of the Kitakyushu series. I therefore recommend not including it in the official Kitakyushu History until we can confirm it from your own records.
2020–2023 — Continuity Beyond the Workshop Format
During and after the COVID-19 period, the underlying bamboo and satoyama conservation programme continued.
The emphasis during this period is better understood as the continuation of the long-term community network rather than simply a sequence of annual architectural workshops.
The organization currently describes the conservation initiative as having continued monthly since 2003, demonstrating that the Bamboo Design story is not limited to individual events but is rooted in a continuing relationship with the local landscape.
2024 — Toward a Circular Bamboo City
By 2024, the Kitakyushu Biotope Network Group had become part of Kitakyushu’s broader Bamboo Utilization Platform, which promotes the idea of a circular bamboo city.
The organization continues to work from the University of Kitakyushu and identifies satoyama biodiversity conservation, bamboo forest management and public participation as its principal activities.
This represents a natural extension of the philosophy first explored through the early Bamboo Design Workshops:
Conserve bamboo forests → use bamboo → design with bamboo → return value to the community and landscape.
2025 — More Than Two Decades of Continuous Bamboo Conservation
The Heisei Taketori Densetsu programme remained active in 2025.
Current university records list student participation in the activity, while the Kitakyushu Bamboo Utilization Platform continues to promote public participation in the monthly bamboo forest and satoyama conservation programme.
What began in the early 2000s has therefore developed into a programme sustained across generations of students, citizens and researchers.
2026 — A New Chapter
In 2026, Bamboo Design Workshop enters a new phase.
International Workshop “BambooDesign 2026”
Theme: Exploring Sustainable Design with Bamboo
Kitakyushu-city (Japan), 15 –24 November 2026
Building upon more than two decades of bamboo conservation, environmental education, architectural experimentation and international exchange, the platform aims to reconnect its accumulated experience and open it to a new generation.
The continuing vision is:
to conserve bamboo landscapes,
to understand bamboo as a material,
to design through experimentation,
to build through collaboration,
and to connect people across generations and cultures.
Bamboo Design Workshop is not simply an annual event.
It is a long-term platform for learning how we can live, design and build with bamboo.