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ITOKI CORPORATION (Head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Koji Minato), together with KOKUYO Marketing Co., Ltd. (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Kenichi Ishii) and Maruten Sangyo Co., Ltd. (Head office: Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture; President and CEO: Takayuki Amano), has participated in a student lounge renovation project at Chukyo University's Nagoya Campus Center Building. This is the first major renovation since the building was completed in 1994, and is an industry-academia collaboration in which students themselves are responsible for the design. Student teams selected from each company took on the challenge of designing the space, and Team ITOKI has now formulated the concept "Nest for you," and is pleased to announce that the design for the lounge has been finalized. Construction is scheduled for completion in March 2026.

This project is hosted by Chukyo University, and involves students choosing one of three competing companies (Itoki, Kokuyo Marketing, and Maruten Sangyo) and each team designing a different lounge space. Using the university's lounge concept of "Crossroads" as a common theme, the project combines student ideas with corporate know-how to create a learning environment for "co-creation."

Behind this lies a change in the career environment surrounding university students, including a decline in the number of students due to the declining birthrate, an earlier start to job hunting, and a trend toward hiring that emphasizes practical skills. As the need to gain skills and experience in tandem with one's studies increases, the aim of this project is to cultivate long-term, practical problem-solving skills over a year that are difficult to obtain through short-term internships, and to gain rare experience. The students had diverse motivations, including an interest in interior design, a desire to leave their mark, preparation for their academic background, and collaboration with companies, and they tackled the designs by considering for themselves the balance between what they wanted to do, what they could do, and what they should do within the limited conditions.

The team that chose ITOKI focused on issues students had expressed about the lounge, such as "The chairs are high, hard, and painful," "It's not relaxing," and "It's not calming." Based on this, they designed a space that would be a "refuge" for both body and mind, combining the following three elements, based on the concept of "Nest for you," a place where people can return to with peace of mind.

• A space where you can concentrate on your assignments and studies
• A space where you can casually chat with friends
• A space where you can relax even for a short time

In addition to being involved in the design, the students themselves create presentation materials and even consider furniture placement and lighting plans, experiencing a design process just like in the real world.

The combination of "Crossroads" and "Nest for you" conveys the message that "It is only because we have a safe nest that we can take flight into a new crossroads." This project is a model of industry-academia collaboration that supports students' career development while also utilizing corporate design expertise. Each team's plan will be realized, with the aim of reopening in March 2026.

In this project, Itoki is applying the concept of "creating spaces centered on people," which it has cultivated through work style research and office design and construction, to educational spaces, co-creating an environment that will serve as a stage where students can take on new challenges with peace of mind during their university life.