Ten design projects from a burgeoning generation of Japanese designers
A slender-framed bamboo chair, electrolytically coloured steel furniture and tiles pigmented with micro-algae feature in this roundup of products exhibited at Designtide Tokyo.Designtide Tokyo, a platform for independent designers, returned to the Japanese capital last year after a 12 year hiatus "to give hints" as to what the design industry could be like in the coming years.The event brought together design projects from more than 30 designers, mostly from Japan as well as South Korea, Taiwan and the UK.The projects, many of which were developed especially for the exhibition, were displayed on white plinths throughout Nihombashi Mitsui Hall, with each designer given equal prominence in the space.Read: Designers "want to show their works in a public, physical scene" says Designtide Tokyo co-founderVisitors could explore the individual projects free from any branding or marketing messages, fulfilling the organiser's aim to "platform new ideas and forthcoming design trends, rather than commercial design".The event's co-founder Yuta Takeda hoped that the exhibition will help to publicly platform new talents to the industry. Speaking of the Japanese manufacturers and brands in an interview with Dezeen, he commented, "the corporate side doesn't have the knowledge of commissioning young designers or the courage to assign young talents that they don't know".Read on for some experimental projects by a burgeoning generation of Japanese designers:Flow Painting series by Daisuke YamamotoDaisuke Yamamoto's Flow series began in 2022 as the designer explored working with discarded building materials. In this case, he created furniture from lightweight gauge steel (LGS), an extruded material normally used as the framing systems for interior wall structures.The material is one of the construction industry's largest waste products and is rarely recycled after demolition.Finding beauty from this unvalued material, the series evolved at Designtide Tokyo with bright surface colour reminiscent of the rainbow-like hues of an oil slick. The colour was not added to the surface but achieved by applying an electrolytic charge through the low-grade steel.Dolmen stone tiles by AatismoDesign studio Aatismo gave new life to discarded Oya stone a pumice tuff made up of volcanic ash and pumice deposited by volcanic activity about 15 million years ago. Caught up in the formation of the stone were impurities such as wood chip that have rotted away to leave irregular holes.These holes are too large for the stone to be used for commercial tiles. The studio took the rejected tiles and filled the cavities with vivid blue gypsum and water-based acrylic. Not only stronger, the stone takes on a renewed aesthetic and can be used again as a building material.Colorwave blankets by Yuri HimuroTextile designer Yuri Himuro developed the Colorwave blankets for the Designtide Tokyo exhibition, incorporating patterns that change depending on the angle and direction from which they are viewed.The textiles were made by combining wool and cotton yarns, which were woven into two distinct layers and then washed in warm water. The wool naturally shrinks with the heat but the cotton doesn't, forming a textured surface with ridges. On these raised areas, two colours were woven side-by-side, only revealed as you alter the angle of view.Bamboo Chair by Syunnosuke SannomiyaA recent graduate of Musashino Art University, Syunnosuke Sannomiya engineered this slender-framed chair by exploiting the inherent strength of bamboo. From studying the natural characteristics of the fast-growing woody stem, the designer cut slim lengths of the strong outer edge of bamboo and glued two of these sections together, creating the sturdy frame components for the chair's structure.These lightweight components, while maintaining the inherent aesthetic of bamboo, are cleverly held together by slender dowel joints. The chair was exhibited as part of the Class of 2024 student exhibition at Designtide Tokyo.SO-Colored research project by We+In their ongoing material research, prominent design studio We+ has created resin tiles coloured using powdered microalgae. Eager to move away from synthetically-derived pigments, the studio worked with a laboratory that is cultivating different species of algae.While commonly associated with green, other vibrant shades of red, yellow, orange and blue were generated by algae. These colours were not only determined by the species, but also the growing conditions.For this project, the designers blended different shades of powdered microalgae with dammar tree resin before casting into rectangular tiles. All slightly different shades, the tiles have been applied to prototype stools and benches.Pixel Weave tatami rugs by Hana MitsuiAddressing the waning popularity of tatami in Japan, textile designer Hana Mitsui turned her attention to the traditional tatami weave technique of Kakegawa-Ori using igusa grass. She observed that the technique's simple weaving structure creates square patterns similar to that of digital pixels.Using different colours of the grass, Mitsui was able to replicate a painting as expressed through this pixelated aesthetic. For Designtide Tokyo, she intentionally opted for the famous Mona Lisa painting, hoping that its iconography would attract many people to it, in turn highlighting the contemporary possibilities of traditional igusa weaving.Time-Created series by Rikuo TakataYoung designer Rikuo Takata exhibited this furniture series with the intention to draw attention to the washi paper made in the locality of his home in Fukui Prefecture. Using some of the prototype papers made by the Osada Washi factory, Takata chose to apply the textured papers to the surfaces of furniture.The designer applied Sumi Japanese black ink to geometric blocks of wood which were then wrapped with the paper and assembled into simple stools and side tables. The dark wood shows through the semi-translucent paper and, on first impressions, the mottled duo-tone surface of the furniture takes on the appearance of stone.Point Line Plane shelving by Hiroaki KawanamiConscious that nowadays our encounter with products is more frequently through an image than physical interaction, Hiroaki Kawanami set himself the task of presenting a design that cannot effectively be communicated through visual media alone.With this as his mission, he presented a minimal shelving system made from an interlocking grid of three millimetre-thick aluminium sheets held in tension by thin blue parachute cord.While the function of the object was immediately apparent to visitors, the design effectively highlighted the limitations of photography in capturing the object's mass, texture or shadows. In an image, the materiality of the object vanishes, leaving a flat and linear "point, line and plane" form on the screen.Rebuilding Ocean Hue ceramics by Sae HondaSae Honda used the shells of sea urchins to create the glaze on this collection of ceramic dishes. When fired, the shells produce ash containing trace amounts of magnesium that adds a matt texture to the glaze. Coastal sand was sometimes added, affecting the final colours and texture.Honda is responding to a two-fold problem: the growing desertification of seabeds due to the voracious feeding by seaweed-eating organisms such as sea urchins. As seaweed beds are depleted, sea urchins often develop poor-quality flesh, rendering them commercially unsuitable for food.As such, less urchins are being fished and populations are swelling which compounds the seaweed loss. Efforts are being made to cull sea urchins and Honda hopes to give greater purpose to that mission with this evolving collection.Shinkokyu by Kensho MiyoshiOff the back of his ongoing research into the aesthetics of movement in design, Kensho Miyoshi presented the small Shinkokyudevice at Designtide Tokyo. While investigating kinaesthetic design for his PhD at the Royal College of Arts London, Miyoshi became conscious of how affected our breathing has become by the distractions of modern life. He found that the pervasive presence of screen-based devices is causing humans to breathe less regularly and often with shallow breaths.Miyoshi's prototype device mimics healthy breathing behaviour: the upper bowl-shaped part breathes' by rising and falling at a similar rate to slow and deep human breathing. His hope is that the simple device will act as a prompt to encourage calmer, more mindful and restorative breathwork.Designtide Tokyo took place at Nihonbashi Mitsui Hall, Tokyo from 27 November to 1 December. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.The post Ten design projects from a burgeoning generation of Japanese designers appeared first on Dezeen.
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