Highland Restaurant Debuts Amazing Technologies at Osaka, Kansai Expo

Lifting the Curtain on Daikin’s Future Experience of Air

Daikin Industries, Ltd.
Content Production: TOYO KEIZAI BRAND STUDIO
AD 2025/03/31
This is a translation of an updated Japanese article first appearing on March 31, 2025

Koichiro Seki
Senior Engineer, Small-sized RA Group,
Air Conditioning Manufacturing Division, and
Senior Engineer, Technology and Innovation Center

“Even though air is essential for humans to live, its value goes largely unnoticed simply because it’s invisible. So, we wondered how we could give material shape to the ‘future of air’ and enable Expo 2025 visitors the opportunity to physically experience the value of air,” says Koichiro Seki in describing the source of inspiration. Seki worked as the project leader for Daikin's role in the highland restaurant “SUIKUU.”

“The concept was a highland restaurant. Yumeshima, Osaka, the site of the World Expo, is a man-made island surrounded by the sea. What we wanted to give people was the experience of dining in a refreshing space suggestive of the highlands while being at sea level with the ocean and sky lay open before them. Agreeing unanimously on the concept, we were confident that it would be a truly special and extraordinary experience.”

The highland restaurant “SUIKUU” is noteworthy for its proposal of a new value of air that had never been realized before. In the private room named “Dining That Travels Through Air,” air control technologies were combined with video and sound as part of a joint research project with the University of Tokyo to create a futuristic experience of air.

Private dining room “Dining That Travels Through Air”

“We merged the air control technology that Daikin excels at with the University of Tokyo’s outstanding cross-modal technology, which involves the interaction of the five senses, including sight and touch. For example, we projected images and sounds of the highlands onto the entire wall of a private restaurant room and controlled the temperature, humidity, and airflow to recreate the “air of the highlands” within the room. These images, sounds, and air created an immersive experience, making it seem as if you were actually dining atop a mountain,” Seki explains.

The four scenes of the highlands, a waterfall, the grasslands, and the highlands at sunset were provided as travel settings. The images and sounds for each scene recreated in the private room such sensations as highland breezes gently touching your skin, moist air emanating from a waterfall, and refreshing breezes blowing through the grasslands. For example, you could enjoy after-dinner coffee while feeling the cool evening air at sunset and listening to the sounds of insects. Spending time in this fashion not only satisfies your stomach, but it also keeps your heart content.

A scene of the highlands at sunset

With “Dining That Travels Through Air,” Daikin demonstrated how technology can expand the possibilities of air beyond our wildest imagination.

“Using this technology will enable people in the near future to sit in a restaurant somewhere and fully experience the taste and ambiance of local cuisines from countries around the world. For example, you could be enjoying paella at a Spanish restaurant in one country and be transported to the clear skies and sunny streets of Spain or be tasting the authentic curry at an Indian restaurant while being swathed in the air of aromatic Indian spices. Wouldn’t that be fantastic and make the dining experience so much better?” Seki asks with a gleam in his eyes.

“Moreover, application of this technology would not be limited to restaurants. Creating relaxing spaces in hotels, offering hospital patients the experience of traveling the globe—this technology could potentially enable the realization of valuable air experiences in a variety of settings.”

The highland restaurant “SUIKUU” introduced another new initiative: “Thermometer of the Future,” a technology that seeks to visualize the invisible air environment. In a joint research project with Osaka University, Daikin developed a technology to verbalize information relating to air environments information, such as season, time, weather, indoor and outdoor temperatures, and humidity. Generative AI then uses this verbal information for visual expression in the form of a digital painting. For example, instead of numerical values, a rainy scene showing cold, windy weather could convey conditions with just a glance.

Private dining room “Thermometer of the Future”

“To enable customers to experience this, a digital painting hung in a private dining room of the restaurant depicts the outdoor air environment as customers enter the room. After detecting a ceremonial toast, the painting changes to a scene of a refreshing highland landscape to reflect the indoor air environment. Even without knowing the exact values for temperature or humidity, people can intuitively know the weather environment just by looking at the painting,” remarked Seki. He continued, “In the future, it may be possible to attach a small monitor to an air conditioner remote controller and display the indoor climate status through paintings.”

The new “value of air” that Daikin presented at the Osaka-Kansai Expo is in no way a whimsical daydream. Daikin has positioned its highland restaurant “SUIKUU” as a demonstration for next-generation restaurant air conditioning. The numerous new technologies unveiled for the exhibit will be further developed and expanded into systems that can be implemented in future society.

To demonstrate the future experience of air, the highland restaurant “SUIKUU” implemented a number of the latest air technologies developed by Daikin. One of these was the “ceiling-supplied displacement ventilation air conditioning” system. This system enables air adjusted for temperature and humidity to slowly descend straight down from the ceiling like a waterfall while utilizing the rising air currents to push stale air from the room back up through the ceiling and exhaust it. In addition to this advanced technology for controlling airflow, Daikin incorporated various new technologies, including high performance filters.

“The Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai Japan was the first time that we implemented this system in a restaurant dining area. One of its features is that it generates hardly any of the crosswinds, typical of air conditioners. This means that the smell of food from the next table does not drift toward your table, permitting you to enjoy your meal surrounded by fresh air at all times,” says Seki. In other words, the “ceiling-supplied displacement ventilation air conditioning” technology can accomplish a similar function of the acrylic partitions commonly seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the air conditioning system at the highland restaurant “SUIKUU” also uses heat recovery ventilation technology, which recovers only thermal energy (coolness and warmth) from the air being discharged outdoors and reuses it for indoor air conditioning. “Our goal is to achieve both comfort and energy savings. We believe this technology will become the standard for a sustainable future society,” says Seki.

“Air surrounds us 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Just image how much richer our lives would be if we could create new value for the air that we all live in,” says Seki, contemplating the future.

“There are many things that air can do, such as making food taste better or lifting up the spirits of someone depressed. In the future, when space travel and space excursions become commonplace, air conditioning technology will become crucial in space as well. I want to further increase this value of air starting now. I believe that air has enormous possibilities,” asserted Seki with great conviction.

However, global warming and climate change are causing the air environment to become harsher every year. This means that it will become increasingly more vital to control air so that people can live in a safe, healthy, and comfortable environment. Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai Japan was a great opportunity to let the children, who will lead the next generation, know the importance and possibilities of air.

Seki says, “I want many children to experience the ‘air of future society.’ Nothing would make me happier than to give them hope in thinking, ‘If the air changes, the future will shine even brighter.’”

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