Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
Yuri Suzuki turns sound into architecture at Camden Arts Projects
The sound designer unveils ‘Utooto’, an interactive installation at London’s Camden Arts Projects (until 5 October 2025), in which visitors collaboratively build a sonic piece of architecture
In the soaring space of Camden Arts Projects, Yuri Suzuki invites each visitor to help shape his latest work – a sonic architecture built in real time. Armed with white plastic pipes, brightly coloured funnel-shaped horns, and a set of simple tools, visitors help to build and reconfigure the pavilion structure rising within the Grade II-listed former Methodist church’s double-height space. The elements they add shape custom pathways for sound to travel and echo, resulting in what Suzuki calls 'an acoustic device… a sonic piece of architecture… a utopian city of shared experience and mutual connection'.
Alongside the sound of visitors, a generative soundtrack plays softly through hidden speakers in pipes. Made from a library of vowels and consonants that are common across global languages, the sounds are composed in a way that sometimes resembles spoken language. ‘It may feel familiar, like you’re hearing a language you know, though it’s from nowhere in particular,’ explains Suzuki.
The name Utooto draws on a sacred Okinawan phrase used in prayer. It’s intended to evoke reverence and play while inviting reflection.
Conceptually, the Tokyo-born Margate-based sound designer was inspired by utopian architectural visions, particularly Walt Disney’s original plan for EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). 'EPCOT was imagined not as a theme park, but as a real, functioning city where innovation and collaboration could shape a better future,' he explains. 'In a similar spirit, Utooto invites visitors to construct their own prototypes of a utopia – not from concrete or steel, but from sound, structure, and collective imagination.'
In a time of growing social division, Suzuki hopes the work can amplify interaction, communication, and collective play – using sound as a universal language.
Ali Morris is a UK-based editor, writer and creative consultant specialising in design, interiors and architecture. In her 16 years as a design writer, Ali has travelled the world, crafting articles about creative projects, products, places and people for titles such as Dezeen, Wallpaper* and Kinfolk.
