Pal. Jour., 2017, 16, 211:217 Copyright 2017 by Palma Journal, All Rights Reserved Available online at:

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1 Pal. Jour., 2017, 16, 211:217 Copyright 2017 by Palma Journal, All Rights Reserved Available online at: Study and Design of Gensai Products: Reducing the Amount of Damage After Natural Disasters (The Case Study of Creative Ideas of Iranian and Japanese Students) Rozita Farzam, Faculty member of Industrial Design, University of Tehran, College of Fine Art,Tehran,Iran. Marzieh Allahdadi, Corresponding Author, Faculty member of Industrial Design, Faculty of Arts, University of Alzahra, Tehran, Iran Abstract Natural disasters, which are the part of human life process and are increased their number and diversity every day, are raised as a major challenge to achieve sustainable development of human societies. Iran is considered as one of ten accident-prone countries in the world due to its geographical and geological location. So for years, the strategies such as crisis management, education, architectural design and others have been considered to reduce the impact of natural disasters on the country. Hence, the need for investigating the product design is important from the stage of risk identification to emergency response and natural disasters recovery. The aim of this study was to investigate strategies to design products focused on minimizing the damage rate caused by natural disasters as well as to assess the ideas against these terrible disasters. Since Japan is the founder of this topic and has designed multiple products in coping with natural disasters, therefore, the workshops which are held in this regard in Japan and a similar one in Iran holding by the authors, have been selected as the case study. This study which was based on cross-sectional approach was evaluated in order to fulfill the goals through the study of documents, books, essays and articles as well as holding workshops and analyzing the projects; and ultimately, some suggestions are presented by conducting the hierarchical analysis. Our results show that designing the products by Gensai approach plays a significant role in reducing the damages of natural disasters. Keywords:Product Design, Gensai Approach, Natural Disasters, Introduction In today's world, the importance of needed proceedings continues to rise in order to reduce the risk of disasters and sustain in line with the sustainable development program. There are three basic reasons for increasing the importance of reducing the risk of disasters: first, human being influences on the stakes from time immemorial, even with the progress of technology have not reduced. Natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods, landslides and tsunami are still very common and they are as a major challenge to human civilization. The frequency and severity of hazards such as flooding, drought and landslides has increased due to global warming and climate changing. So far, in the developing countries, the efforts are partly able to harness human losses of these disasters; however, in the last years, the human and financial tolls have increased in developed countries and developing countries. Comparing the number of accidents in the past three decades , it points to the fact that the number of disasters caused by natural hazards has doubled in each decade. Although the number of people killed because of the disasters of the last decade has been less than a decade before, but it has doubled the number of affected people and the extent of economic losses in every decade. (Unisdr, 2004) The second reason to increase the importance of reducing the risk of disasters is that the risk has been collected throughout history due to inappropriate development. Because development has not done appropriate practices in the developing countries. Report of the year 2004 of United Nations Development Program States that, "Although that only 11 percent of Palma Journal

2 212 R.Farzam, M.Allahdadi the people exposed to natural hazards are in countries with low human development, but more than 53 percent of the total mortality has been registered in these countries." (Undp, 2004, PP13) The third reason to increase the importance of the issue of the management of disasters, which is due to a significant increase in new threats such as gun violence, terrorism and other human disasters. On the one hand, increasing attention to reduce the prevalence and severity of natural and man-made disasters. On the other hand, the fantastic advances in the design of products in order to control and reduce the damages caused by natural disasters in Japan and expansion of the Gensai approach leads to provide facilities for the design of products with Gensai approach in dealing with disasters. The next challenge is how to capitalize on the design of products with Gensai approach to reduce the impact of disasters in Iran and create strategies to control the incoming damages in disasters. The hypothesis of this research is that by using the Gensai approach, it can be designed products with more stability to manage catastrophic damage against the disaster. In this study, it has tried to study and recognize more accurately the Gensai approach in the design of products and studies designs done by students in two countries, Iran and Japan. Therefore, it has been held two workshops in this respect in the University of Kobe design in Japan and in Tehran University in Iran. Research methodology In this study, research methodology based on goals, it is practical research and based on methodology, it is analytic-descriptive. To do this research, it was used method of the documents collection (library) and survey research. In addition, in order to recognize and assess the designs of products with Gensai approach, it has been done two workshops as sample of studying in both countries Iran and Japan with the aim of studying the impact of Gensai product design in the management of natural disasters. This research was descriptive in terms of data collection; because it was based on surveys of experts to collect data, analyze the assumption. The natural disasters of world, Iran and Japan: The natural hazards in the world are increasing. In discussing killed people, the earthquake has the highest number of casualties and respectively, storm, heat and tropical storm and flood are in the next ranking. Most of these stakes happen because of the effects of climate changing and human manipulation of indiscriminate in the environment and natural resources. Figure 1 shows percentage of natural disasters occurrence in the world. 1% 2% 4% Other natural disasters 35% 5% 7% 9% 8% Volcano Serious temperature Forest fires Avalanches and landslides Earthquake 29% Drought and famine Storm Flood Figure1: Percent of natural disasters in the world. According to the statistics of the United Nations Development Programme (UNPD) and Center of studying the world's natural disasters, two-thirds the amount of economic damages of natural disasters have occurred in the populous countries such as Asian countries. Among the world s countries and disasterprone regions of the world, South Asia is the riskiest region and it is reported the most victims by natural disasters such as earthquakes, seasonal storms, floods, droughts and other items from this area. The growth of population, especially urbanization is one of the most important factors in the incidence of human catastrophes caused in effect of natural disasters occurrence. In the Asian region, the South Asia is the most

3 Design of Gensai Products 213 populated urban area that it is an important factor in the incidence of human catastrophe caused by the occurrence of natural disasters. Although several designs of the various organizations, especially the Asian urban disaster risk reduction program (AUDMP) run to control the urban population, but still there are places in Asia which require a serious program to reduce and control the focus of the urban population. (khosh Sokhan, 2007) The land of Iran also due to geographical location and geology is as 10 accidentprone countries of world and has always been significant human and financial losses on the occurrence of accidents like a flood, earthquake, drought and storm. By reviewing more than 40 sets of natural hazard around the world, it has recognized that each group has divided into several subsections. With respect to the assessment of the Iranian lands, at least 31 sets of natural disaster are acquainted and always will be repeated. Due to this fact, there is not complete immunity from natural hazards in any place of the country and in no time. Risk reduction, dealing and the prevention of its occurrence cause necessarily the products design by Gensai approach. (Ghaed Rahmati, 2010) At least 86% of the territory of Iran are in the earthquake-prone area zone in such circumstances and according to the lots of the Gross National product spent on compensation for natural disasters, planning to reduce natural disasters has special importance. (Askarizadeh, 2010) Japan is also one of the accident-prone countries in the world, which it is in relation with the occurrence of natural disasters. The occurrence of severe earthquakes, volcanoes and storms are as common natural disasters in Japan. In 1962, the basic law dealing with the disaster has adopted. Japan's crisis management structure has divided to four levels of national, State, local and municipal. The procedures of Government s emergency response office are that the ministries, institutions and organizations communicate with each other at the same time and 24 hours a day. (Montaseri, 2015) Also, in order to reduce the damages of the natural disasters that it has been provided Gensai approach in the field of industrial design and production of products with this approach, which it is discussed in the following part. Definition of Gensai Design: This is one new concept word against natural disaster in Japan. After the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in 1995, a new idea came out from that experience of severe disaster.* That is GENSAI instead of disaster prevention. GENSAI has a meaning of 'disaster mitigation'. GENSAI is a new concept of preparedness for minimizing damages from the natural disaster which we cannot escape from. Violent natural disaster cannot be prevented completely, but there are many way to keep the human damage to a minimum. By following this concept, it's not only enough to focus on the moment of emergency, but also importance of effectively adopting measures into daily life. The situation of GENSAI in design criteria is shown on Fig.2 Figure 2: The image had shown the place of GENSAI Design which inovated in Japan.* The word "Disaster prevention" is popular as to make preparation for natural disasters, however they are useless until the expected disaster happen. The emergency supplies are tending to forgotten or expired in long term. * Specification of Gensai Ideas in Product Design: The disaster happens in daily life without certain prediction. The product designer need paradigm shift from "product oriented" to "product ready", "disaster oriented" to "disaster ready". In the emergency caused by big disaster, we need information about what happen at when and where to make right decision to choose direction of escape or stay in the place. Then, we must survive in hard environment,

4 214 R.Farzam, M.Allahdadi such as dark, cold and dangerous circumstances. When you survive, you may try to help people around you. Soon after, you will fight to recover or reconstruction activities and mitigation, after that prepare to next disaster. (fig.3) Figure 3: Four phases of disaster DR or Disaster-Ready Design is the approach in which a product of daily life is designed and developed in a way it can also serve effectively in case of a disaster. Disaster-Ready Products (DRP) can be for right before the disaster. It is when a product is designed not for emergency cases only but for everyday life, yet considering what can be the usefulness of it in case of an emergency like earthquake, tsunami or similar. The Specific properties requirements and specifications of DRP for the GENSAI Design products are as follow; It s not for emergency cases only, It will be used in daily usable or always carried or worn it. It must be always ready to use or as soon as possible to use. Users know its existence, usage and function/performance well.easy to use. The disaster-case role considered by the designers not improvised by the users. (fig.4) * Figure 4: Points for consider at DRP. Figure 5: Sample of DR Products, LEDOOR Handle, Good design Awarded 2014.

5 Design of Gensai Products 215 Examples of products designed with DR approach in the figures are numbers 5 and 6. Figure 6: Sample of DR Products,Versatowel is usable but in emergency time easy to use as bandation. Table 1: Proposals and Awards (Source: GDPC2016) It s known by everyone the importance of daily preparedness for surviving in an emergency, but for example it might be difficult to gather emergency goods and prepare them in the house. So, to promote emergency preparedness, we face the challenge of How to prepare for what? And if we know the way to prepare, we have a further challenge of What to do to promote emergency preparedness? Surely we can propose these challenges by way of design. Classification of Proposals at Gdpc: The author classified all proposals into 23 categorized as shown in table 1 by its major purpose. The most of proposals are categorized into "First-aid/ Hygiene", they are 34 and got 4 awards. The second is "Bag" and the third is "Commodities + Function", followed by "Lighting".* Holding workshops in Iran and Japan: Natural hazards such as earthquake and flood in both Iran and Japan during recent years characterize irreparable damages to each country. Therefore, the Government of Iran and Japan decided to educate people against natural disasters that put the preparedness in their agenda. It is clear that issues of education cannot alone control and reduce incidents after damages. The design of the products with Gensai approach is also new approach, which beside education and crisis management can improve controlling.

6 216 R.Farzam, M.Allahdadi Workshops to recognize designers with this approach and creative design by them were held last year in Kobe Design University in Japan and Tehran University. After the necessary explanations by teachers of workshops (Dr. Farzam and Dr. Sagara), The students start to give ideas and designs with Gensai approach, which has described the images of number 10 and 11. Results of these workshops are that the products design reduce and manage the abnormal incidents damages, which is due to the culture of each community with more detailed reviews of these products can be generated and used. Figure 7: Workshops in Iran- Dr.Farzam Figure 8: Sample of design done by students participating in the workshop Iran. Figure 9: Sample of design done by students participating in the workshop Japan.

7 Design of Gensai Products 217 Results and Coclusions A natural disaster can cause loss of life or property damage, and typically leaves some economic damage in its wake, the severity of which depends on the affected population's resilience, or ability to recover. Disaster risk reduction is not a new matter to focus on, in different design fields such as architecture, product design, interaction design, etc. But living in countries like Iran and Japan, both in danger of massive earthquakes and other natural disasters and both trying to prepare themselves to reduce the risk of any type of damage as much as they can afford, even though they are in two very different levels of accomplishments. The First aid/hygiene, Rescue/Refugee and Shelter/Screen which are directory relate to huge disaster, are major categories for proposals. The Bag and Commodity + Function are also major. Those are carried in daily life, so they seem easy to develop idea for the GENSAI Design concept. The Lighting, Foods and Water are necessary articles for life. The GENSAI design is not so popular, however steadily lot of design school begin to cope with this scheme as design practice. We hope to spread this idea to the whole world and then commercial real products or services will be realized in this action.* References: Askari zadeh, M, Mohamd niya qaraei, S, Zohor, M, (2010), Disaster management and environmental hazards in sustainable development, Fourth International Congress on Islamic World Geographers, Zahedan, Iran. GENSAI Design, "Design power for GENSAI and restoration" of Society for Design and Art Fusing with Science and Technology(SDAFST), J. SAGARA, K. SHIMOO, 2016, Japan. Khosh sokhan, M, (2004), Geography, Life Science, Bahman Publications, Tehran, Iran. Montaseri, L, (2015), Overview of the management of natural hazards in the world, 7 th International Conference on crisis management, Tehran, Iran. UNISDR (UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction) (2005), Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters. In Proceedings of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction (pp.18-22), January 2005, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan. United Nations Inter-Agency Secretariat of the International Strategy For Disaster Reduction, Geneva. United Nations Development Programmed (UNDP), (2004), Reducing Disaster Risk: A Challenge for Development (p.146), New York: United Nations Development Programmed, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery.