A 20-year collaborative educational program among students, inhabitants and local professionals in Tochio, Japan

An educational program developed by Niigata University ran in collaboration with inhabitants of Tochio, Japan from 1997 to 2016. Gangi, traditional arcades are owned by residents living in snowy districts, require careful maintenance and generational renovations. Our aim was to rebuild one arcade each year while integrating learning and actual engineering within an educational program. Over the twenty years of the program, eighteen Gangi were successfully designed and constructed. The present study describes various aspects of the program covering twenty years, including analysis of the process, problems that occurred, questionnaires completed by students and program outcomes. Moreover, we aim to clarify the level of influence the collaboration in actual town planning had on students. The study verifies the problems and effects of annual construction of Gangi as well as social recognition through on-site surveys of inhabitants. During the program, we were fortuitous to come across various situations and processes we had not foreseen or experienced. This is because the participants faced the challenges and duties that professional engineers meet in their daily work. Consequently, collaboration between the students, inhabitants, local officials and professionals was vital to overcome these difficulties. Clearly, one of the most rewarding results from our program was coming up with viable solutions for these unexpected problems as a collective.