“Addressing environmental issues with an idea and belief”A Kyoto venture firm from the Expo to the world: Vol. 3

Chips produced by granulating unused lumber from forest thinning and used as the raw materials for benches

“I want to see what lies beyond the walls.” Representative Director Hando’s aspiration to provide 2,000 benches (4,000 seats) made of unused lumber to the venue of the Expo as part of the Co-Design Challenge generated empathy in many people, allowing the project to accelerate significantly.

　All of the 20 forest owners’ cooperatives based in Kyoto Prefecture offered their cooperation in procuring raw materials, saying that “We would like to disseminate our new environmental contribution from Kyoto,” which is truly a strong support. The project met with reactions from schools as well. How to deal with branches and leaves left behind after maintenance of the trees in schools has been a source of concern. Therefore, the students proposed that it would be great to use such branches and leaves for the Expo, and Hando went to the schools and began to collect wood wastes while working together with the students.

　An array of bags containing unused lumber so gathered from various areas are lined up in front of the factory at the headquarters of Ace Japan in the Keihanna Science City. Information, such as the place where the material was lumbered, the date, and a picture, is attached to each of the bags. This is for disseminating information about the region of origin of the material when it is transformed into a bench.

　After being granulated into chips with a mill, unused lumber is compressed from a thickness of 30 cm to only 3 cm with a press machine in order to convert them into rectangle wooden boards as components of benches by using the die that Ace Japan has developed independently. The wooden boards will then be hollowed out and assembled to produce benches that are superior in terms of water resistance, light resistance, heat resistance, and load-bearing capacity. The benches can be assembled easily just by fitting components neatly into each other without a nail, so Ace Japan plans to offer opportunities of making the benches to the students of the junior high schools where lumber was collected.

　A bench produced by combining two oval bases, which it will supply to the venue of the Expo, is placed at the entrance of its head office. The soft wooden texture entices people to come close and sit on the bench. Ace Japan asked Fortmarei, a partner company of the Expo and a design studio based in Kyoto, to design the bench and gave it the go-ahead on the first try as he felt confident in the unique shape inspired by the Expo’s official mascot, MYAKU-MYAKU.

　Hando was a sprinter specializing in the 100 meters in his school days. Holding a record of 10.04 seconds, he has experience of winning national conventions. A boy who endeavored to go beyond the wall with a headband that read “Breaking through” around his head started his own business in the laboratory building located in the Keihanna Science City and has come a long way to this point with his curiosity and inquisitive mind.

　Ace Japan will begin assembly of the benches in full swing in October. It has been putting unfettered ideas into shape while valuing horizontal cooperation with such parties as corporations and municipalities. “The Expo is just a start. We would like to grow more as a company,” he wishes, while waiting for the opening of the Expo excitedly.

Mr. Keita Hando, Representative Director of Ace Japan

A “future bench made of unused lumber from forest thinning,”
which Ace Japan plans to provide to the venue of the Expo