The Judges Awards

02.5 Nendo

Nendo, the Tokyo and Milan-based design group headed by Oki Sato, hit its stride this year and entered the big league, carving a place in the industry as one of the most exciting and experimental contemporary studios. Nendo’s designs are disarmingly simple at first sight, but on closer inspection reveal themselves to be clever and innovative, in construction, concept or both. At this year’s Salone del Mobile, for example, as part of the ‘Senseware’ exhibition exploring new materials, Nendo created an ethereal installation of bubblelike lights, made from engineered fabric ‘blown’ in a similar way to glass, creating a unique shape each time. Proving the team can experiment with form and still remain within the bounds of function, Nendo also designed a series of stools and pouffes based on tree trunks for Moroso; elegant ‘Collar’ cabinets for Quodes; and an ingenious set of ‘Shortcut’ towel rails for Boffi, one of our favourite designs of the year. Dabbling in design-art, Nendo revisited last year’s intriguing ‘Cabbage Chair’ – now part of the permanent collections at museums including MoMA in New York and Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs – for a spell-binding installation at New York’s Friedman Benda gallery.

Founder: Oki Sato
Established:2002
Based: Offices in Tokyo and Milan
Key project 2009: Pleated paper 'Cabbage Chair' revised with fabric for Ghost Stories installation; ‘Blown-Fabric’ lights; ‘Kub’ pouffes for Moroso; ‘Collar’ cabinet for Quodes; ‘Shortcut’ towel rail for Boffi
Other work:Tod’s store windows, Christmas 2008; interiors for ABC Kitchen Studio cookery school, Tokyo, 2007

View gallery of work
www.nendo.jp/en

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