Facilities

Research rooms on the RIHN campus are designed to provide a senseof openness. The design concept is to allow implemented projects to beloosely interconnected as they occur in one large curved space 150 metersin length. The facilities help external researchers as well as RIHN researchstaff to meet one another, since they are designed with the maximizationof shared use in mind. At the center of the main building, a library andcomputer room are located for the convenience of many users, and threecommon rooms are provided for casual discussions. On the basement
floor, a cluster of fully functional laboratories has been designed withemphasis on convenience for shared use, as with the research rooms.
The separate RIHN House is a guesthouse. The assembly hall and adining lounge located to the left of the house entrance serve as meeting
spaces for the RIHN staff as well as for guests.
Appropriately for an institution researching the global environment,
RIHN is housed in a tile-roofed building suited to the Kyoto landscape,where as many as possible of the trees already on the site have beenretained. Lighting and air-conditioning also employ the latest designs tominimize the building's impact on the environment. The design has won
acclaim, receiving awards from the Illumination Engineering Institute ofJapan, the Japan Institute of Architects, the Green Building Award fromMIPIM Asia, and the Architectural Institute of Japan.

Management
RIHN researchers work across thebreadth of global environmental
studies. If the diverse knowledge
they produce is the warp, thenthe unifying weft is provided byfield measurement, laboratory
analysis, data and information
management, and academic andsocial communication of research
progress and results. In maintainingand supporting RIHN research
capacity to collect and analyze data
and to communicate research innumerous professional and publicfora, the RIHN Center enhances ourcollaborative research around theworld and contributes the kind of
integrated knowledge that can solve
global environmental problems.

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Laboratories
RIHN research projects are multidisciplinary and multimethod; incommon they share the need forhigh quality physical observationand chemical and biological analysisof the surface environments of theearth. As a national institute, RIHN
houses eighteen basement laboratories
designed to address this need. Thereare state-of-the-art laboratories
dedicated to microscopic, DNA andstable isotope analysis. Additional
facilities include two fieldwork
preparation rooms for storage andmaintenance of observational andsampling equipment, three lowtemperature rooms for organism andice core storage, three incubatorrooms for storage of organisms
requiring specific temperatures, anda clean room in which samples canbe processed in a contamination-freeenvironment.

Instruments
RIHN research projects conduct
a variety of studies around theworld and collect a diverse rangeof samples that contain valuable
information that will help illuminate
human-nature interactions. Stable
isotope and DNA data in particular
can give very precise descriptions of
how materials and species interact,change, and move through time andspace. In addition to maintaining
state-of-the-art laboratories, theLaboratory and Analysis Divisionof the RIHN Center continues todevelop new methods of data analysisand application. In conducting thisresearch in collaboration with RIHN
projects, universities and affiliatedinstitutions throughout Japan, thedivision enhances the sophisticationof experimental techniques andexchange of research information,and promotes the shared use offacilities.

Exhibition Hall
Entrance Hall

Dining Hall

Lecture Hall

Seminar Rooms

Main building
Administrative Office

RIHN Center

Library
Research Rooms

Water Garden

Main entrance hall
Wooden Deckand Garden

Garden Covered withFallen Leaves

Detached “floating”
room

Low Temperature
Sample Storage

Project Rooms

Library(Two-Tier)

Laboratories

BiologicalLaboratory
Isotope Analysis
Laboratory

Clean RoomExperimental Laboratories

The RIHN House with one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments
for guest researchers and their families.

2F
Main Entrance Hall
Administration
Lecture Hall
Seminar Rooms
Dining Hall2F

1F
Employee Entrance
Research Project Rooms
RIHN Center
LibraryMedia Center

1F
B1F
Basement
Laboratories
Book Repository
Field Research Equipment and Facilities
Cold Storage53