About the Lab

Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is a major goal shared across the world. At the same time, decarbonization alone cannot bring about the bright future society we are aiming for. We must continue to develop industry and society sustainably while improving the richness, comfort, health, and safety of people's daily lives.

How, then, should science and technology confront such a difficult challenge?

Science and technology to date have advanced to a high degree within individual specialized fields—mechanical engineering, architecture, electrical engineering, information science, control engineering, human science, and others. However, the challenge of reconciling a decarbonized society with a life of genuine value for human beings cannot be solved within the conventional, vertically divided academic system alone. We need a new academic framework that connects the knowledge and technologies of different specialized fields and treats spaces and society as a single system.

For more than fifty years, our research group has shown, ahead of the rest of the world, that even different energy conversion systems can be analyzed and designed in a unified way by expressing them through circuit theory as a common analytical structure. Building on this theoretical foundation, we have advanced our research from basic studies all the way to the development, control, and demonstration of thermal energy devices and systems—turning theory into real-world technology.

What we aim to achieve next is to build a new academic field, "Human Space Design Engineering," on the foundation of the energy system analysis and thermal engineering expertise we have cultivated.

We call the spaces in which people live, work, learn, and move "human spaces." Human spaces encompass every place where people are active—homes, offices, commercial facilities, factories, mobility, and even the interior of clothing or outer space. Within these spaces, architecture, mechanical engineering, information and control, energy, and human beings interact with one another, generating value such as comfort, health, productivity, and safety.

One of the key physical phenomena at the center of it all is "heat."

Heat is a major factor in energy consumption and CO₂ emissions, while also being deeply connected to human comfort and health, product quality, production activities, and food safety. We must therefore stop thinking of heat merely as a loss to be reduced, and instead consider where it should be generated, how it should be transported, stored, used, and controlled, in order to create spaces of genuine value for people.

In Human Space Design Engineering, we use thermodynamics as a common language to connect architecture, mechanical engineering, information and control, energy, and human science. By making use of experiments, mathematical models, simulation, digital twins, AI, and optimal control, we aim to clarify the principles by which human spaces are formed, while building new design methods that achieve both comfort and health alongside energy conservation and decarbonization.

Our research is not limited to individual devices or buildings. We treat the entire chain as one system—from the supply side of society's energy, including renewable energy, distributed energy resources, hydrogen, and electricity and heat supply networks, to the demand side, including housing, workplaces, production sites, agriculture and food distribution, and mobility. Furthermore, our research spans everything from elucidating fundamental phenomena to developing devices and systems, demonstration, social implementation, standardization, and policy proposals.

What we aim for is not simply to learn existing disciplines, but to connect different fields and create scholarship and technology that has never existed before. This requires the ability to think beyond the boundaries of one's own specialty, the courage to take on challenges with no established answers, and a spirit of collaboration with one's peers.

Less than a quarter of a century remains until 2050. By then, it will be you who stand at the center of society. Whether we can achieve a decarbonized society and create a bright future in which people can live healthy, comfortable lives depends on you, who will carry science and technology forward from here.

Let us work together—starting from heat—to connect people, space, energy, and society, and to build a new field of scholarship that designs the human spaces of the future.

Kiyoshi Saito, Waseda University