BAUD Lab

A mobility hub designed around

the hottest hour of the hottest day.

Behavioral Architecture and Urban Design Lab —Shibaura Institute of Technology

Opening August 1, 2026

We design places where people linger, and study how a space's form, meaning, and the behavior it invites connect. Led by Kumiko Honda at Shibaura Institute of Technology.

A lingering space beside the approach to Omiya's Hikawa Shrine, built to keep a city moving and alive through extreme summer heat. Designed and built by the lab.

From a place you pass through, to a place you want to stay

Summers grow more punishing each year. Extreme heat drives people indoors, quiets outdoor activity, and has begun to weigh on local shops and the life of the street. More than ever, cities need cool spots: shaded, comfortable places where people can stop, and stay.

Mobility hubs have long been framed as nodes, points for changing modes as fast as possible. We aimed further. With a community space at its heart, Omiya Platto is built not only to be convenient, but to keep people moving and lingering through the heat, and to grow civic pride in the city itself. A node becomes a place.

Design Intent

We started from the person sitting down. Every decision, the orientation, arrangement, and material of each piece of furniture, begins there.

Designed around the hottest hour of the hottest day : The seating faces the conditions of around 12:30 pm on August 15, one of the hottest moments of the year. Sit down and the sun falls behind you: no glare on your face, less dazzle, more ease. Shade, placed behind where you sit. ：Existing trees stand at your back, letting their shadows fall across you as you rest.

Shade, placed behind where you sit : Existing trees stand at your back, letting their shadows fall across you as you rest.

Near and far, places with different characters : The chairs are fixed, but every placement was considered. Some drawn close, where conversation happens; others set apart, to rest alone.

Rooted in place

Omiya Platto sits along the approach to Hikawa Shrine, one of Omiya's defining civic landmarks. Two or three times a month, kitchen cars arrive, folding small moments of everyday liveliness into the space.

Connecting form, meaning, and behavior

Honda Lab bridges three layers of space: its form, the meanings a place carries, and the behavior of the people within it. Working from a pragmatist standpoint grounded in Peircean semiotics, we read them in their generative order.

"Form gives rise to meaning, and meaning realizes itself in behavior."

At Omiya Platto, decisions of form, the orientation and arrangement of the furniture, shape the meanings the place holds within the city's image, and those meanings come to life as the behavior of staying and moving through. We study meaning qualitatively, and pedestrian flow quantitatively with LiDAR, then tie both back to the form of the space.

The hub's mobility functions are currently in a first phase, with shared bikes and scooters, and will expand over time. As part of this work, we also run field trials on keeping the outdoors walkable in extreme heat.

Design and implementation: Behavioral Architecture and Urban Design Laboratory (Honda Lab), Shibaura Institute of Technology.

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