IAC News

Collaboration between the Architectural Institute of Japan and JSCE

Tamon Ueda
 (110th President of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers)
*Photographer: Rumiko Ito

The fields of civil engineering and architecture are fields that people outside these areas of expertise find difficult to distinguish. Nevertheless, they are clearly divided as fields of education and research, industries, and government departments. The two fields have been clearly distinguished ever since the Architectural Institute of Japan(AIJ) was founded in 1886.

Both architecture and civil engineering are fields that cover a wide range of expertise, and the papers of the AIJ are broadly divided into the categories of structure-related (including materials and construction), planning-related, and environment-related. Meanwhile, the papers of JSCE are divided into the categories of structure-related, hydraulic-related, geological-related, planning-related, material-related, construction-related, and environment-related. Architecture and civil engineering are both comprehensive disciplines that include elements of social science. As you can tell from the names of the categories, the broad structural, planning, and environmental disciplines, including materials and construction, are common to both academic societies. For example, in my area of expertise, there is the Japan Concrete Institute, where experts in both civil engineering and architecture work together. At JSCE and the AIJ as well, there are experts in the field of concrete that engage in committee activities separately. The fact that architecture and civil engineering are both comprehensive academic disciplines and that some of the individual academic disciplines exist in both fields are two characteristics that JSCE and the AIJ have in common.

The Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two societies in November 2021 saw the establishment of a Joint Task Force (TF) to publicly implement joint activities between the two societies. Although the two academic societies primarily faced similar issues, they did not have a way in which to regularly and publicly collaborate to tackle these issues. The TF, which consists of experts from both academic societies, engaged in lively discussions and decided on what issues should be tackled together. A work group was then established to tackle the following six issues: (1) conducting an awareness survey of the members of both academic societies regarding collaboration, (2) examining the social value of civil engineering and architecture and a vision for collaboration, (3) linking up to tackle disasters, (4) taking carbon-neutral measures, (5) promoting digital transformation (DX), (6) creating fundamentals for civil engineering and architectural design. These are difficult issues that cannot be dealt with completely by academic societies in the specialized fields common to both civil engineering and architecture (societies such as the Japan Concrete Institute), and it is not sufficient for both JSCE and the Architectural Institute of Japan to address them separately. While natural disasters such as floods and geological disasters, which have occurred frequently in recent years, are phenomena explained in the field of civil engineering, it is regions that include cities and so on with both civil engineering and architectural structures that suffer damage. Linking up to tackle disasters is only possible when civil engineering and architecture, which are comprehensive academic disciplines, come together to collaborate. In the DX space, Construction Information Modeling (CIM) and Building Information Modeling (BIM), which are an identical IT technology, are being deployed separately in the civil engineering and architecture fields. However, in cases when civil engineering and architecture facilities are integrated, it is obvious that consistency between CIM and BIM would be more convenient.

The issues highlighted above are issues of social importance that go beyond civil engineering and architecture. If benefits can be produced that are visible from a social perspective, we can expect these benefits to help save the civil engineering and architecture fields, which domestically are in decline in comparison to other engineering fields and internationally are in decline in terms of research findings and technological development. To actively highlight the benefits of this collaboration to society, JSCE plans to publish information online and both societies plan to regularly include joint features in their respective journals. I look forward to hearing what you think via the JSCE feedback page (https://committees.jsce.or.jp/chair/).

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