The Italian bathroom manufacturer Flaminia has harnessed the stellar talents of Nendo to sprinkle a little stardust over its 70th anniversary celebrations. It is a collaborative relationship that has worked wonders for the brand since 2010 –combining the Italian rigour of ceramic sanitaryware with the whimsical imagination of Oki Sato’s studio. (Indeed, Flaminia’s creative director, the legendary star-maker Giulio Cappellini, was one of the earliest patrons of Nendo when the fledgling studio first ventured to Milan.)

Fast-forward almost two decades and, during Fuorisalone 2024, Flaminia launched two new product families from Nendo, first in the brand’s flagship at via Solferino, and later in the week at a special event titled ‘Nendo in the Stars’ in a Porto Nuova penthouse with panoramic views over the city.

First up is ‘Box’ – a series of countertop ceramic washbasins available in a range of colours, inspired by the curiously compelling activity of unboxing. Nendo’s nod here to the process of opening packaging comes in the form of two gently protruding wings that grace each edge of the rectangular or square basin. As ever with Nendo, the witty device has a canny, practical dimension too; the wings catch any rogue sideways splashes. Elegance and efficiency combined.

One of the blessings of a lengthy collaborative relationship between brand and studio is the cumulative trust that builds, which in turn encourages the pushing of boundaries and perhaps even the breaking of new ground. Evidence here comes in Nendo’s second project: ‘Tub-Lamps’, whereby the studio has literally turned an idea on its head. Taking familiar round sink and oval bathtub forms, Nendo has upended them and created a range of shapely, curvaceous, stroke-able, ambient lamps, for the bathroom or elsewhere.

Exploring the world of lighting is a first for Flaminia – but why not? Such is the beauty of long-lasting relationships built on trust; you never know where they might take you next. Seventy years on and fresh as ever.

ceramicaflaminia.it

Paola Lenti is unstoppable in her mission to create a better world: the Italian furniture company has been improving its production with a mission to re-use and give another life to leftovers and discarded materials. During Milan Design Week 2024, the company unveils a new chapter of its journey, which started in 2022 through a collaboration with Estudio Campana. 

This year, the brand presents Nendo'sMottainai project, based on the Japanese word meaning 'not to waste, use the resources you have available'. To create the Hana-arashi series of furnishings and complements, Sato played with the colourful offcuts referencing the organic forms of blossoming cherry trees, in honour  of Japan's most beautiful yearly event, a breath-taking moment able to bring people together.

The collection has a strong connection to Japanese culture, not only in its reference to the cherry blossom trees but also because the forms of the pieces are informed by ancient samurai armours.

Paola Lenti and Nendo 'Hana-arashi' collection

The petals that fall down the trees inspired the colourful cut-offs selected by the designer, who carefully combined them in different chromatic compositions, metaphorically referring to a second nature, a second flourishing. 

'The starting point for the collection is the Maris mesh fabric, developed and produced exclusively by our company for outdoor collections,' says founder Paola Lenti. The recyclable, 100% polypropylene waterproof material is available in 180 colour hues, and benefits from a low fusion point. It can be overlapped and welded, avoiding the use of secondary materials such as sewing threads or adhesives. 'Further experimentation revealed that by tweaking the temperature and heating time, specific section of the fabric can be hardened to increase its strength, and allow light to pass through, thanks to alternating opacity and transparency.' 

Reusing means ennobling materials, for which Nendo founder Oki Sato has a great respect. 'Usually, the briefs we receive from the brands and companies are based on their respective features and strengths. However, in our collaboration with Paola Lenti, the project started when we were shown a small piece of the material, rather than a brief to design a specific item or use a technology. It was a piece of polypropylene mesh material that they used in their outdoor furniture,' recalls Sato.

'They also showed me a sheet of material that is rigid and marbled in colour. Seeing this piece of soft, textured, flexible material side by side with hard, strong sheet material, I had the feeling that there were countless 'in-betweens' of the two features of this material. And I still vividly remember how excited I was that it would surely be an interesting project.' 

Lenti adds: 'Starting from unique fabric remnants with curvilinear form, Nendo has carefully shaped them by folding and wrapping them on themselves to create products featuring high aesthetic and design value: it is indeed the nature of the material, mouldable and strong at the same time, to determine the form of the object – lamps, poufs, side tables, an armchair, and baskets – without compromising the delicate texture of the fabric and its recyclability.'

It is well known that Sato loves to investigate different 'trial and error' (also the title of a 2012 exhibition) before taking the decision to commit to a specific project. '[After] getting back to my studio in Tokyo, I repeated experiments with the material in different ways, like boiling it in hot water, baking it in an oven or frying pan, and ironing it,' he explains. 'Through this dialogue with the material, a technique was found, whereby the necessary strength and soft texture were retained by applying the right amount of pressure and heat, just like a panini. Eventually, dedicated equipment was also developed to produce this collection, and we feel that this unique process is what makes this project so fascinating.'

Sato was charmed by his collaboration with Paola Lenti: 'to simply use things over and over again, designers should be required to draw out new characters and values from the materials by recreating them. I feel that this will be one of the important qualities required of the designers of the future.'

The Nendo collaboration with Paola Lenti is on view from 15 to 21 April, as part of Milan Design Week 2024

Paola Lenti
Via Giovanni Bovio, 28
Milan

nendo.jp
paolalenti.it

An artist who creates by breaking, and a designer who creates things to be broken: American artist Daniel Arsham and Oki Sato of Japanese design firm Nendo have engaged in a dialogue spanning over four years, culminating in their latest collaboration titled 'Break to Make', debuting at Milan Design Week 2023. 

Their collection of works transcends the boundaries between art and design, showcasing each designer's specific yet uniquely poetic approach to materials and form. Nendo's minimalist and precise forms are given new life by Arsham, who deconstructs and transforms them into functional and playful works, each piece telling a unique story of destruction and rebirth. 

This intersection of two opposite perspectives is a hallmark of the collaboration. Arsham's expression of present objects as past artifacts is counterbalanced by Nendo's ability to create present objects that anticipate the future. The resulting works invite viewers to look beyond the surface and embrace the beauty of transformation.

Nendo's streamlined designs are reinterpreted by Arsham through his unique 'eroded' approach: 'After we create objects with no intended use, Daniel creates new functions by breaking them,' says Sato. For instance, Arsham hammers a bathtub into a love seat, or carves a bench from a narrow block. '[We are] an artist who expresses present objects as past artifacts, and a designer who makes present objects that anticipate the future. The collaboration may be seen as an overlay of these two contrary perspectives,' adds Sato.

The special installation, staged at Nendo's Milan office, provides a unique opportunity for visitors to witness first-hand the synergy between these two creative forces. 'Break to Make' is a poetic and harmonious exhibition resulting from the collision of different disciplines, transcending our preconceived notions of time and space. A series of customised items, such as T-Shirts and keychains, are available to be purchased on site. Don’t miss the short cartoon series with the two characters, Oki and Daniel, building and breaking things.

Break to Make is on view 18-23 April 2023, reserve a ticket here

Nendo
Via Pinamonte da Vimercate 4
Milan

Break to Make T-shirts, caps, and keychains are available on Nendo's online shop

The Japanese design studio Nendo might be best known for its contemporary and forward-thinking creative undertakings, but amongst its most recent projects this year is a collaboration with some of Kyoto’s most venerable master craftspeople and ateliers. Appropriately titled ‘Nendo sees Kyoto’, an exhibition at New York's Friedman Benda (until 15 October 2022) showcases the pioneering design studio's collaboration with six artisans, each specialised in an ancient Japanese craft tradition, to create new works of art. The fruits of this project were first presented across World Heritage Sites in Kyoto at the beginning of 2022, and made their American debut this September. 

Nendo experiments with Kyoto craft

Nendo’s effort to meld Japan’s creative past with its present is a beautiful tribute to the country’s rich history of traditional techniques and use of materials. The project’s collaborators include a 16th-generation expert in making ironware kettles used in the traditional tea ceremony, an atelier that has produced paper lanterns in Kyoto since the middle of the Edo period (1603-1868), makers of lacquered wooden tea caddies – one of ten families serving the three remaining schools of Japanese tea in Kyoto – and a 12th-generation traditional gardener and landscape designer whose atelier has serviced Kyoto’s landscapes for almost 250 years. Each craftsperson collaborated with Nendo, utilising modern techniques such as 3D-printing, laser-cutting and other design and construction methods, to create new, highly individualised pieces of work.

‘At the beginning of the project, I did not have a clear vision of the outcome,’ says Nendo’s founder Oki Sato. ‘It was a process of repeating research, visiting and observing workshops, and discovering ideas through countless dialogues with the craftspeople. With some collaborators, we could see the direction naturally through conversations as if we were brainstorming, whereas with others, we couldn't seem to click no matter how many times we present our proposals. There is no doubt that both were fascinating experiences.’

‘The project did not start from the beginning with a set number of collaborators,’ he  adds. ‘We were introduced to other workshops and craftspeople in the process of talking with one craftsman, and the number of collaborators gradually increased. We were also able to meet the Iemoto [grand master] of the Urasenke School, and from there we were able to make contact with a group of craftsmen known as the ‘Ten Craftsmen of the Senke School’. This was also important for creating a diversity of materials and techniques [featured], including woodworking, pottery, stone, lacquer, metal, and Japanese paper.’

The result is a provocative and inspiring body of work. Onishi Seiwemon’s iron pieces have been 3D-printed using titanium powder to create a U-shaped vessel that can be either used as a sake pitcher or a vase, for example. Kojima Shouten’s traditional washi paper and bamboo lanterns have been reimagined in ten new shapes and forms, showcasing their strength and suppleness in one poetic gesture. Miyazaki Furniture, a woodworking atelier founded in 1856, has produced a duo of wooden screens in the Sashimono tradition (without the use of glue or joinery tools) that articulate one of Nendo’s most recognisable visual signatures, while the Ogawa Jihei gardeners have sought to bring the garden indoors by installing drawers within 3D-printed boulders to transform a traditionally decorative garden feature into a functional object. In Sato’s view, this project was especially challenging to realise.

‘In terms of techniques and processes, I think “Ishidansu” faced the most challenges,’ he says of the project. ‘It was realised by putting together different materials with cutting-edge technology and manufacturing, where each process was fraught with tension. Perhaps the most surprising thing was the fact that woodworkers even purchased and used precision drills dedicated for dental technicians to finish the surfaces with the highest precision.’ 

INFORMATION

‘Nendo sees Kyoto’ is on view until 15 October 2022

nendo.jp

ADDRESS

Friedman Benda
515 West 26th Street
New York

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Drawing inspiration from shapes found in the natural world, Japanese design studio Nendo and Georg Jensen have collaborated on a set of three sterling silver vases with organic, tree-like forms. 

For Oki Sato, founder of Nendo and one of five visionaries featured in Wallpaper’s 25th anniversary project ‘5x5’, looking to nature not only felt like a logical continuation of the Nendo oeuvre (which ranges from the ‘Cabbage’ chair, made from the leftover paper that is a by-product of Issey Miyake’s pleated fabric production, to his sun-inspired spherical cauldron for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but also a logical way to combine the language of Japanese minimalism with the aesthetic of the historic Danish brand.

‘There are many Georg Jensen designs that rely on nature as their primary motif; like a flower or a plant, or just abstract and organic forms you see in the natural world,’ says Sato.

‘And I feel that this is something Georg Jensen shares with Japanese culture, which is closely related to nature, and I think that was the starting point of this project. In particular, the concept of “water” is special for Japanese people who live in an island nation surrounded by oceans and where many make a living through agriculture.’

It takes around 400 hours for the set of three vases, entitled ‘Mizuki’, to be created by Georg Jensen silversmiths in Copenhagen. It is a process that entails hammering the precious silver into its intended shape and then repeatedly melting it at high temperatures to achieve its final form, before finishing them off with multiple rounds of expert polishing.

And with characteristic inventiveness, Sato has also designed the vases to be multifunctional. They can be filled with water so that flowers appear to float on top of them, or used as jugs.‘But I don’t want to limit their function to just a vase or a jug,’ says Sato. ‘It’s up to the user how they interpret the design.’

INFORMATION

georgjensen.com

nendo.jp

It’s not every day a creative is given carte blanche to ‘design flames’ – yet this was one key task among many which Oki Sato, founder of Japanese design firm Nendo, found himself tackling recently. These were admittedly no ordinary flames: perhaps the most famous in the world, they were created to flicker at the heart of the Olympic Cauldron, which was designed by Nendo for this year’s belated summer games in Tokyo.

Inspired by the sun, the white spherical orb blossomed into ten reflective aluminium panels beneath the night sky, opening like the petals of a flower in front of a global audience in July, before being lit by tennis player Naomi Osaka. The lighting of the cauldron was not only the final chapter in a painstaking design journey (a two-year process involving no less than 85 prototypes, combined with multiple pandemic challenges) – it also marked the apex of Nendo’s consistently upward trajectory since a freshly graduated Sato and four friends launched the design firm in 2002, in his parents’ garage in Tokyo.

Over the subsequent two decades, the studio’s prolific output has been true to its name – nendo means clay in Japanese. Its ever-busy team (today totalling around 60, in Tokyo, Milan and Shanghai) are behind a malleable catalogue of projects nimbly spanning the creative spectrum, from homes and restaurants to furniture and interior products, with no detail of daily life overlooked – right down to milk carton-inspired soap dispensers and recyclable paper clips.

Playful, minimalist, innovative, clean-lined, functional and deeply rooted in daily life, Nendo creations – which always start with a simple sketch – are often instantly recognisable. 

Underpinning the studio’s creative DNA is the clean-lined simplicity and quiet colour palette of modern Japanese aesthetics, always balanced with a refreshingly universal perspective that is rare in Japan’s sometimes insular design industry.

A clue behind this global vision can perhaps be traced to Sato’s childhood: he spent the first ten years of his life in Toronto, before his family relocated home to Tokyo, an experience that enables him to navigate and experience the multi-faceted layers of Japanese life as both outsider and insider.

Nendo’s highlights – too many to list – range from ‘Hanabi’ (Japanese for firework), a minimalist white shape-memory alloy lamp which ‘blooms’ when switched on, unveiled at Milan Design Week in 2006; the graphic simplicity of ‘Thin Black Table’, produced for Cappellini in 2011; and the staggered cube-like formation of Kashiyama Daikanyama, a luxury complex which opened in Tokyo two years ago.

Not to forget the Olympic Cauldron, which has demanded exceptional attention to detail. There was the high-tech moulding of 10mm-thick aluminium plates by a special hot press machine; the ultra-low speed milling guided by laser scans to avoid distortion; and the extensive heat, fire and wind resistance testing of the polygonal mirror panels and compact internal drive unit. 

And of course the flame itself – from the use of hydrogen (a first for the Olympics), generated through electrolysis of water from a solar power facility in Fukushima prefecture, where a nuclear disaster had struck in 2011; to the endless explorations of the perfect shade of flickering yellow, via sodium carbonate reactions, in addition to masterminding its angle, movement, shape and firewood-like shimmer.

Beyond the mix of design innovations and technological tinkering, the studio had to contend with a pandemic, as well as surging public opposition and an endless will-it-won’t-it-happen countdown to the games –  it’s clear that this project was as complex and sensitive as it was high-profile.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sato simply recalls a sense of ‘relief’ above all else when the cauldron – which he describes as ‘crystallising the essence of Japanese manufacturing’ – was finally unveiled to the world. ‘It was a project with a lot of pressure as it was not possible to fail,’ he explains. ‘The last six months were very tough mentally and psychologically. So I didn’t feel emotions such as joy, I was just relieved that the project finished without any major trouble.’

He adds: ‘I hope that many people could feel the vitality and energy behind the concept of the cauldron – not just the athletes, but also the many people still struggling from this pandemic. I hope it gave courage, and hope to those people.’

Sato is also all too aware that courage and hope are precisely what’s needed among a new generation of designers in Japan and beyond, who are juggling shifting global industry dynamics and the uncertainty of a pandemic with the challenges of launching their careers.

‘Now, many companies are observing the situation and refraining from investments and challenges,’ he says. ‘So huge branding projects and new projects may be rarer. And even if there were these projects, I feel that they would choose a designer with a stable history of accomplishment instead of giving the challenge to young designers, to lower the risk. The connection between young designers and society is getting looser and looser and I regard this as a serious problem. Also, if travel restrictions continue, this may lead to a decrease in engagement with designers from overseas, and in the presentation of new products. 

‘It is possible for a mid-level designer who already has connections – they may continue projects using Zoom – but it is a different situation for designers starting from zero.’

In terms of his own efforts to support young creatives, he highlights how designers at Nendo are often allowed to work on a half-freelance basis after acquiring sufficient skill and experience at the studio. 

‘This may help to maintain a longer relationship between us,’ he explains. ‘In Japan in the past, you basically had to choose between being a freelance or a salaryman. But to take the pros from both sides and make their status more ambiguous gives designers more opportunity for growth and the chance to perform a wider range of activities.’

Issey Miyake as mentor

When asked about mentors encountered on the pathway to his own success, Sato definitively cites perhaps Japan’s most iconic design name: Issey Miyake.

It was in 2008 when Sato was invited by Miyake to join a string of other young designers to create works for a new exhibition. The end result? The ‘Cabbage Chair’ – an organically unfolding structure fashioned from rolls of pleated paper left over from Miyake’s famed pleated textile process – which has since been globally celebrated and now sits in MoMA’s permanent collection.

The experience was a milestone for Sato, not simply due to the affiliation with one of Japan’s most influential designers – but because of the invaluable creative lessons he learnt in the process.

‘I was trained as an architect, which meant I had a goal to fulfill and I needed to finish every project,’ reflects Sato. ‘However, Mr Miyake told me that I really didn’t have to finish the project. When you feel that it’s finished, it’s finished. That was interesting and inspiring – I learned that I am the one who creates the goal. That’s what makes design so free and interesting. Every project has a different goal.’

It’s a creative lesson that’s long lingered with Sato, who today has his own advice to offer designers starting out: don’t take the easy route.

‘There are always two paths to choose in any situation,’ he says. ‘The choices are the easy way and the difficult way. I strongly suggest taking the difficult way. The easier way can only give you the solution to the problem – but the difficult way will lead you to experiences and engagements that will benefit you in the future.’

Like many global designers, Sato’s own creative vision of the future has been dramatically recalibrated courtesy of the pandemic. Nendo’s output admittedly appears to have been no less prolific (this year alone, launches range from its online store Nendo House to amenity kits for JAL, while future projects include the interior design of France’s new high-speed TGV trains, to be unveiled ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, and an exhibition of collaborations with Kyoto craftsmen early next year).

Nendo introduces Nendo House, its online store

For a designer who used to pretty much live out of a suitcase (he was accustomed to a monthly round-the-world tour pre-pandemic), Sato describes the unusually long amount of time he has spent in Japan as a period of ‘overhaul’ – a moment to review past projects as well as plant creative seeds and incubate new ideas designed to flourish in a post-pandemic world.

‘It's a strange moment in my career because I haven't been abroad for more than two years,’ he says. ‘I can look back on our past activities and review each and every one of the things we have done so far. And perhaps the thoughts and arrangements I've made over the last two years will bring great value to Nendo in ten or 20 years.’

Meet Nendo’s five creative leaders of the future:

• Takt Project
• Federica Biasi
• Mario Tsai
• Studio Jinsik
• Julie Richoz

INFORMATION

nendo.jp

A version of this article appears in the October 2021, 25th Anniversary Issue of Wallpaper* (W*270), on newsstands now and available to subscribers – 12 digital issues for $12,£12,€12.

Seventeen designers and artists have been invited to reinterpret Dior’s ‘Medallion’ chair for the French house’s most significant presence at Milan’s Salone del Mobile to date. A roster pulled together from China, Korea, Japan, Lebanon, South Africa, UK, Holland, Italy and France includes Sam Baron, Nacho Carbonell, Pierre Charpin, Dimore Studio, Martino Gamper, India Mahdavi, Nendo, Ma Yansong, Tokujin Yoshioka and Pierre Yovanovitch.

The Dior Maison collection, under the creative direction of Cordelia de Castellane focuses on tabletop and decorative items, yet in November 2020 it launched the ‘Bonne Aventure’ card table and chairs. At first it might seem out of character to find chairs at Dior, but back in 1947 when Christian Dior opened his couture house, he turned to Victor Grandpierre to decorate the salon.

That original design scheme included grey and white armchairs and the oval-backed ‘Medallion’ chair used to seat guests at his fashion shows, both in a 1940s vision of the neoclassical Louis XVI style that the couturier loved. The armchair was immortalised in the 1955 Diorama and the 1958 Miss Dior perfume campaigns by illustrator René Grau. It has subsequently has become almost as iconic to the house as the ‘Bar’ jacket or Cannage pattern.

Showing from 5 September 2021, in Palazzo Citterio in Milan’s Brera neighbourhood, 17 designers have put their personal spin on the oval-backed Dior ‘Medallion’ chair. Around 30 chairs are exhibited, some as pairs or sets.

Dior ‘Medallion’ chair: 17 new designs go on display at Salone del Mobile 2021

Pierre Charpin has reduced the Dior ‘Medallion’ chair to the absolute minimum, with just an outline (that said it’s a particularly bold outline) in black metal resin and finished with a mirrored seat, for the user to look ‘at oneself before being looked at’.

Sam Baron’s ‘Ensemble(s)’ is made up of four pared-back chairs assembled together in a deliberately haphazard way. 

Nendo’s ‘Chaise Medaillon 3.0’ is made of two sheets of tempered glass, with the back and legs formed from a curve held in place with a shelf-like seat and the signature oval back rendered as a void, in a very pleasing interpretation.

Seoul-based Seungjin Yang has applied his signature balloon technique to ‘upholster’ the seat and back of his otherwise pretty faithful render of the chair, made entirely in epoxy resin.

India Mahdavi proposes a chair design close to the original in Dior grey lacquered wood, bringing her passion for craft and sense of colour through hand-embroidery from Kashmir in Djerba wool; each chair in her set of five is slightly different, and the designer calls them ‘a united tribe despite their individuality’.

Beirut-based designer Khaled El Mays has deconstructed, reinterpreted and reinvented the original, by extending the back, incorporating a straw-backed mirror and adding leather fringed feet.

Pierre Yovanovitch’s his and hers pair, ‘Monsieur et Madame Dior’, are crafted in bronze and upholstered with embroidered canvas in Dior’s oblique logo pattern, first developed by Marc Bohan in 1967, made expressly by Vermont in its Paris ateliers.

INFORMATION

Dior ‘Medallion’ chair, on show at Palazzo Citterio, from 5 September 2021. Opening hours: Saturday to Thursday, 10am – 7pm; Friday, 10am – 4pm

dior.com

ADDRESS

Palazzo Citterio
Via Brera 12
Milan, Italy

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It’s a still life with a high-tech twist: beneath a linen wall hanging, there is a wabi sabi teacup, a potted plant – and, in unexpected harmony, the minimal white lines of a Google Nest Wifi. This is just one scene among 100-plus exhibitions that make up the third edition of Designart Tokyo, a fast-growing annual festival which – as the name suggests – celebrates all things design and art related across the Japanese capital.

The idea of transforming a city into one vast, living museum is no mean feat – particularly when the metropolis in question is an urban sprawl packed with over 13 million residents. Yet this is the goal of DesignArt, which opened across 11 different neighbourhoods in the capital, with the Ginza and Shinjuku areas included for the first time. This year – the biggest to date – around 300 designers, artists and brands are showcased for ten days in museums, galleries, design studios and stores.

‘Comma at 21_21 Design’ in Roppongi, is an installation inspired by the pauses in modern day life, curated by trends forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort, and produced by Google Hardware Design Studio. Minimal linen wall hangings with abstract motifs by Dutch interior architect studio INAMATT echo new Google products (including a pebble-like Nest Mini of recycled plastic), all subtly set among everyday items, from soapdishes to teapots. ‘Yes, this is technology,' explains Ivy Ross, Google’s VP of hardware design. ‘But beautiful objects are not just about how they look, it’s also about how they feel.’

World Kita-Aoyama Building is the setting for ‘1% for Art’ exhibition – an initiative supporting one per cent of national construction budgets going towards public art projects. An eclectic array of pieces were on view, from Shigeki Yamamoto’s hole-punched bamboo furniture to Apical Reform’s hanging shoal of high-tech red piranha fish.

At the Nendo-designed Kashiyama Daikanyama complex, it’s all about rocks. ‘Earthscape,’ a contemplative exhibition by Okurayama Studio and designer Teruhiro Yanagihara, showcases richly textured Daté Kan volcanic stones dating back 20 million years. Sourced from Mount Zao in northern Japan, they are displayed simply in large wooden boxes, alongside photography by Yuna Yagi and stone products (including the minimal, layered Kon Pac table).

Other highlights include Raison d’Etre, by Wakabayashi Butsugu, the 19th century Kyoto Buddhist altar makers, at GUM in Omotesando. Here, bold modern takes on traditional home altars were showcased, as imagined by six Japanese creatives – from Kohei Nawa, whose fantastical still-in-progress wooden phoenix will soon be covered in gold leaf; to Satoshi Itasaka’s shiny, fluidly-curved altars in lipstick red laquerware (there’s even one for dead pets).

Meanwhile, ‘Swiss Design / Made in Japan’, curated by David Glaettli, features a raft of collaborative creations – including the curved Japanese oak Polar Chair, designed by Moritz Schlatter and produced by Karimoku New Standard and exquisitely sprayed Arita ceramics by Kueng Caputo.

Other small-scale gems include Koichi Futatsumata’s Kiulu Bench – inspired by wooden bathing buckets – in Artek’s window, alongside landscape photography by Nao Tsuda. At Bunkitsu Roppongi, ‘Nature as Metaphor,’ by Chialing Chang featured a wood tower and delicately fanned mulberry tree fibres, meanwhile at Espace Louis Vuitton, Christian Boltanski’s magical Animus films, one shot in Chile, the other on Japan’s Teshima island, are also screened.

‘It’s a city-wide platform to showcase Japanese and international designers using the city as a stage,’ explains Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture – one of six Tokyo creatives behind Designart. ‘What’s most important is that it gives Japanese designers a voice both nationally and internationally, to be seen and discovered – something that has been lacking in Tokyo until now.'

INFORMATION

Designart Tokyo runs until October 27. designart.jp

‘20 years ago, a designer would only think about the head of the product: How do we produce it? How can we sell it, how will people use it?’ declares Nendo founder, designer Oki Sato, swivelling slightly on the wheels of his latest creation for Danish furniture brand Fritz Hansen. ‘I think more and more designers now look at the tail of the product, how will it be thrown away and what's going to happen after that.’

Sat in his Milan showroom on a grey Sunday in September, the Scandinavian-inspired colour palette of the scattered flock of chairs is the only source of pigment in the otherwise stark white shopfront space. The chair in question is N02 Recycle, both Sato and the brand’s first foray into recycled materials: a moulded, stackable system made from recycled household plastic, Polypropylene, sourced nearby in central Europe.

Polypropylene is the kind of plastic we all know intimately. Food packaging, water bottle lids, straws: any type of household plastic waste labelled with the recycle code ‘5’. To transform your discarded tomato packaging into Sato and Fritz Hansen’s new chair, the recycled materials are ground up into pellets and melted into their new roles, a process that can be repeated, in theory, ad infinitum. Uniting, as Sato describes, the product’s head and tail.

Working with Polypropylene, though, presented a number of challenges: the recycled material by nature is slightly more rigid than the plastic typically used for a stacking chair, so allowing for flexibility and comfort was key. ‘Controlling the thicknesses within the shell was the biggest challenge,’ explains Sato of the chair’s design, which tapers from a relatively deep base outwards like a curved flower petal, preserving movement and bounce while ensuring structural integrity.

Inspiration for the form came from ‘a sheet of paper folded in the middle,’ he says. ‘We noticed that it creates a nice form that also has lumbar support. It does not touch your body too much and it does not constrain your movements too much, either. When you're sitting down people do not necessarily sit like this,’ Sato freezes, back-rigid with his feet flat on the floor, ‘they would go like this,’ he explains, relaxing into a slouch, elbow draped over the backrest, ‘it had to adapt to all these different ways of sitting.’

The N02 Recycle is being launched in three different formats: four-legged, sledge and swivel bases. The sustainable mindset also extends beyond plastic: the chromed steel sledge base is 50 per cent recycled, while the polished aluminium swivel stands at 95 per cent.

‘I think, in general, we need to have a better understanding of materials,’ explains Sato when asked whether the material research that went into this project will have a spill-over into his practice at large. ‘The way we select materials, the way we treat materials. This know-how will be adapted to our future projects.’ 

INFORMATION

nendo.jp; fritzhansen.com

Monikered the ‘coffee capital of the Middle East', Kuwait has hit new caffeine heights. Kyoto-based Arabica Coffee has arrived on Kuwait's eastern coast, with its signature clarity and minimalism, as created by prolific Japanese design studio Nendo. Crisp white concrete and coffee machine blend into the background, while brass accents and the linen coffee bags subtly reinforce the quality brew from Higashiyama, Japan.

Due to the limited height of the site, seating has been divided into tiers, with an end result akin to an amphitheatre. This layout is reflected in the shape of the ceiling, echoing the unique form of the café; creating a great social spot. Sacks of coffee beans line the walls, adding a welcome textural element to the otherwise austere interior.

The open plan nature of the space and the lack of chairs creates a motion of interaction between customers and baristas. The unique seating pattern continuing into the external fabric of the building, with additional cascading seating working its way down to street level; creating a dynamic and engaging environment both within and outside the café.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Nendo website, and the Arabica coffee website

Watch the making of the ’Melt’ collection by Nendo for WonderGlass

Appearing like ice sculptures, frozen in time, WonderGlass' latest collection of clear glass furniture sees the brand collaborate with master of minimalism Oki Sato and his Tokyo-based studio Nendo. The gravity-formed pieces mark the Venice-based brand's move into furniture design, expanding on its existing collection of lighting and objects.

Titled ‘Melt,’ the collection sees the designer pair simple arch shapes with flat panels to form elegant chairs, tables, stools, benches and tabletop pieces with bumpy, imperfect surfaces, which lend them an icy appearance.

‘The Melt Collection pushes the boundaries and capabilities of cast glass,’ say WonderGlass founders Maurizio and Christian Mussati. ‘Nendo has explored the molten liquid nature of the material with incredible skill.’

The collection follows on from a series of glass objects by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, which the brand launched during last year's Salone del Mobile. Nendo's collection, fittingly named Melt, allows the material to direct the design process using gravity as main characteristic of this labour-intensive production technique.

Made by the skilled team of craftsmen at the brand's factory in Venice, each piece begins as a vat of molten glass scooped out of an oven, poured onto a surface and rolled out like dough to create an even thickness. Still red hot, the glowing glass sheet is then carefully draped over a steel pipe, which gives it its melted form.
 
The piece is left to cool for a few minutes before being prised away from the pipe and lifted into an annealing oven, called a Lehr. The whole process involves a carefully orchestrated symphony of timings and temperatures and requires the team of eight or so craftsmen to work together as one to avoid any mistakes, which can ruin the entire process. If the temperature is just a degree out or the glass stays a few seconds too long in the Lehr it can crack or shatter as it cools.

‘I was inspired by looking at the workshops, looking at the people working, using the melted material,’ said Sato of the design and development process. ‘The main idea was to let the glass flow by itself using gravity and using the weight of glass itself. In a way, doing less and achieving more is the most complicated thing to do.’

Melt will be presented during IMM Cologne (14-20 January) with an exhibition at the city's 25hours Hotel. The presentation, which will see the furniture presented alongside a photographic exhibition will serve as a preview of WonderGlass’ upcoming installation at Salone del Mobile in April later this year.

INFORMATION

’Melt’ will be on view at IMM Cologne. For more information, visit the Wonderglass website

See more highlights from IMM Cologne here

Maurits Cornelis Escher – better known as MC Escher – was a graphic artist, born in Holland in 1898. In his lifetime, his work in woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints, inspired by tessellation and geometry in nature and objects, went mostly unnoticed by the galleries and museums. The artist was already in his seventies when the first major exhibition of his work was held. Yet among the people – particularly, scientists, mathematicians, and designers – Escher has always been considered a genius.

Escher was known for his ‘playful visual paradoxes’, says Cathy Leahy, senior curator at the National Gallery of Victoria, where a experiential exhibition on the artist has just opened. The show’s radical pathway deconstructs the form of a house to its most minimal parts, with sweeping circular motion, kinetic elements and distorting effects that befit the master of optical illusions and propel his work into posterity.

It was planned by Nendo, the Japanese design studio headed up by Oki Sato, who conceived a posthumous collaboration with his team, rather than to simply create a stage for Escher’s work. Special installations respond to the ideas in the works themselves and create a bountiful dialogue between the living and dead, digital and analogue, two and three dimensions (or more). Nendo makes you stop and stare – works appear to move of their own accord, float or disappear.

The artist was obsessed with ‘repeated patterns that work into infinity’, Leahy explains, and Nendo’s design interprets these ideas into the architectural structures on show, creating an Escher world of interlocking patterns and elaborate eye puzzles.

Among the significant works on show is the last piece Escher completed in 1969, three years before he passed away. It is in many ways emblematic of his life’s work: Snakes, a large woodcut printed using three blocks and employing nine print operations, puts your head into a spin just thinking about the equation of its making. The symmetrical patterns that intertwine with the snakes seem to collapse into infinity in the centre, sucking us in with it.

For a younger generation who might not be familiar with Escher’s drawings that once hung in classrooms everywhere, their relevance to today and his legacy is made emphatically clear by Nendo. This is not a conventional survey show, but a compelling transformation of an artist’s lifework into a kind of intellectual theme park.

‘Escher’s main theme is about trying to find something between the impossible and possible,’ Sato says, ‘which is very important as a designer as well, it’s about trying to make the impossible possible. That is the true value of design.’

INFORMATION

‘Escher X nendo: Between Two Worlds’ is on view until 7 April 2019. For more information, visit the Nendo website and the National Gallery of Victoria website

ADDRESS

National Gallery of Victoria
180 St Kilda Road
Melbourne

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Prolific Japanese design studio Nendo has released a hand-generated portable charger to power-up your phone in a black-out situation.

Founder Oki Sato has long looked to the many natural disasters in his native Japan to inspire his problem-solving design. For the Denqul charger, Nendo has again partnered with hardware company Sugita Ace; after the success of two prior collaborations themed around disaster relief, including a portable toilet, and an emergency kit filled with supplies.

Now, Nendo and Sugita Ace have turned their attention to the troublesome thought of loosing power on your mobile phone, when faced with no electricity, and no access to emergency services. The designers considered solar panels, before deciding upon using hand-generated centrifugal force to produce electricity.

The Denqul stick pulls out to double its size and bends into an L shape, which can be easily swung and rotated. A lithium battery is positioned on the tip to maximise the centrifugal force, utilising the weight of the battery (often thought of as a disadvantage in hand-held chargers) as leverage.

Of course, the device – which also plugs into the mains – can be used for everyday charging, too. As such, Denqul is imbued with Nendo's signature minimalist aesthetic. It's available in three muted, matte colour finishes, and comes with a charging dock-cum desk tidy, handy for standing your phone and cables in.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Nendo website

Nendo, prolific Japanese design studio, has added another product to its expansive repertoire: a picture book. Created by Oki Sato, Nendo founder and chief designer, the book features an ordinary cup as the story’s unlikely hero. However, as readers are quickly warned by the book’s title, this character (whose central purpose is typically to house hot tea) is ‘not just a cup’.

In fact, this picture book functions as a kind of design allegory (smartly personifying cups and spoons instead of tortoises and hares). The story follows a cup with no spoon, who tries to solve the problem of stirring coffee. In doing so, the cup transforms – changing itself into different forms as it searches for a solution. This little cup’s journey captures Nendo’s spirit of design. Indeed, ‘Nendo’ in Japanese translates to ‘a modelling clay like Play-Doh’ – changeable, malleable, inventive.

In not just a cup, Sato showcases the multi-purposeful nature of design; it’s not just about creating beauty, but devising imaginative solutions to problems, even if they’re just small inconveniences. Sato believes it is worth giving attention to ‘small and seemingly boring things’, and that the power of design can transform them into objects of excitement and enrichment.

Always looking for playful and surprising possibilities, Nendo’s design-morphing cup truly runneth over, with the firm presenting more than 20 physical objects from the book in its launch exhibition (forget party) in Tokyo. Taking the ethos of ‘not just a cup’ further and further, the company showcased cups with drawers, cups that unwrap, cups that are partial spoons or partial telescopes, clocks, lamps, and flowerpots (the list truly continues). One thing’s for sure, when it comes to Nendo, a cup (physical or figurative) is never just a cup.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Nendo website

The National Gallery of Victoria today announces the blockbuster exhibition, ‘Between Two Worlds: Escher X Nendo, which will make its world debut at the Melbourne museum this December. One of design’s most in-demand studios, Nendo will create a ‘deeply immersive exhibition experience’ inspired by the Dutch artist MC Escher (1898-1972).

The major show will include more than 160 prints and drawings by Escher, presented in an environment conceived by the Japanese design studio that will manipulate geometry, space and perception. Nendo founder Oki Sato has a flair for immersive environments, having created a life-sized, fish-eye ‘sketch’ of a living space at the Taiwan Craft Research Institute and a kaleidoscopic ‘ivy of mirrors’ for a Japanese flower-arranging school.

A master of optical illusion, Escher created some of the most iconic images of the 20th-century. His mathematically-inspired works of impossible staircases, architecture, and more. Drawn from the world’s largest collection of Escher’s work in the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, this is the first major Australian presentation of his perspective-bending work and will span the artist’s entire output, from 1916 through to his final work produced in 1969.

‘The National Gallery of Victoria’s spring/summer season for 2018/19 reflects our commitment to presenting a dynamic and full programme for our diverse audiences,’ says NGV director Tony Ellwood. ‘At the heart of this programme is the never-before-seen exhibition, ‘Between Two Worlds: Escher X Nendo, which will showcase the consummate skill and unique vision of both artist and designer.’

Presented alongside this Melbourne-exclusive exhibition will be a rich programme of events and exhibitions throughout spring and summer at NGV International and NGV Australia, including major solo exhibitions by William Wegman, Polly Borland, Julian Opie, and Hito Steyerl.

INFORMATION

‘Between Two Worlds: Escher X Nendo’ will be on view 2 December – 9 April 2019. For more information, visit the National Gallery of Victoria website

One minute: that’s how long it takes to create a monster. ‘I don’t recall ever being fearful of monsters as a child, so my design is childishly simple: I started with a doodle,’ says Dutch designer Maarten Baas, one of 16 creatives asked to think monstrous by the Czech glass manufacturer Lasvit. Transforming those dark imaginings into Bohemian glass, however, has taken almost two years. The project is finally unveiled at Salone del Mobile in Milan’s Teatro Gerolamo, a neoclassical puppet theatre, where it has been awarded the prestigious Milano Design Award for best installation, interpreting a contemporary design and a future conceptual vision.

Conceived by creative design strategist Stephan Hamel and Lasvit founder Leon Jakimič, the project has delivered a diverse family of monsters, from a mirror encrusted with googly eyes by the Paris-based couturier Maurizio Galante to a menacing stained-glass portrait by octogenarian artist Vladimír Kopecký. Eight of the pieces will be limited editions, Kopecký’s will be a one-off, while others will be more widely available. All form the Lasvit Monster collection, which will be updated each year with contributions from new artists.

‘Every culture and individual perceives the concept of “monster” differently,’ says Jakimič. ‘They frighten us, but also open up our minds, reminding us of our own limitations and inner fears. The question of what a monster really is becomes real through these artworks.’

The pieces, made in four of Lasvit’s workshops in the Czech Republic, employed both traditional and groundbreaking techniques including hand-blown, cast, fused and cut glass. Some pieces were even made using uranium, which adds a unique gleaming green. ‘It’s not radioactive,’ Jakimič laughs, ‘but we asked someone from the atomic agency to literally add one drop to the molten glass to create the effect.’

Daniel Libeskind’s offering called for a complex process, adding glass chips into a mould, increasing its temperature by a few degrees every day over a few months before cooling it down at a similarly gradual pace. ‘As an architect, I always start to design with a drawing,’ says Libeskind. ‘But in this case, I sat down at a table with a bucket of clay and a kitchen knife. And I just began to sculpt.’ To translate the clay monsters into glass, ‘we used a super-sophisticated Bohemian technique invented during socialism’, says Jakimič. ‘It’s the first time we’ve used it for a product.’ It gives the pieces an unusual luminosity and a colour that changes depending on the light.

Glass artist Stanislav Müller also pushed the boundaries, exploring the properties of optical glass with his geometric monster. ‘Production must be perfect,’ he explains. ‘Each piece of glass is cut by hand from one block of optical glass to avoid unwanted refraction.’ The artist engraved and ground details onto the faces. ‘It looks simple, but was a challenge.’

Baas’ whimsical contribution draws inspiration from an imaginary discovery of fossils of small beasts, with sharp teeth but no stomachs, while Italian architect Fabio Novembre looked to Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man for ‘Toyboy’, slyly subverting it with body parts vaguely resembling sex toys.

As for Canadian design duo Yabu Pushelberg, they veered away from a literal interpretation to draw on Japanese folklore. Their designs nod to tsukumogami, household objects that are said to transform into spirits after a century of use. ‘They are sometimes described as vengeful, but also as simply mischievous. Either way, they are an ancient representation infused with the soul of a material culture,’ says Glenn Pushelberg of their three animal head-shaped vessels. ‘Maintaining a playfulness, but also a slightly sinister, mischievous undercurrent to each piece was the greatest challenge.’

The project is an important way of showing young, innovative designers the potential of working with glass artisans. But it proved equally enticing for the 96-year-old Czech glass artist René Roubíček, who shaped molten glass by hand at the furnace to create an organic form named ‘The Martian’. ‘The monster could only be like this; playful and merry, provoking solely by the surprising simplicity of its elements,’ he says.

Another venerable talent, Italian designer Alessandro Mendini, believes the time is right to think about monstrosities: ‘Designing monsters means being able to vanquish them.’ His designs are intended to appear kind and friendly. ‘I think all the objects I make are a bit like monsters: it is a kind of creature that arouses special fascination,’ he says. ‘But in my case, the monster is a good-luck charm.’ Equally amiable are the Campanas’ ‘Outer Space Monsters’, named Flix and Flex. ‘Our monsters are like aliens with a human shape inside. They are not ugly or terrifying. We see more horrible things in daily life,’ says Fernando Campana.

One of the most intriguing pieces in the collection, ‘Something Underneath’ by Japanese designer Oki Sato of Nendo, is almost invisible. It looks as if a leaf of paper or cloth were draped over a menacing shape, ‘playing with the idea of the unknown and the invisible’. Each piece called for a large single sheet of glass, its week-long cooling process meticulously controlled to reduce the risk of breakage. ‘It is such a simple idea, yet so sophisticated,’ Jakimič observes.

According to Lasvit’s art director, Maxim Velčovský, however, the true value of the exploration of monsters is that it offers a unique glimpse into the world of the designer. Velčovský’s own creation is a Lenin lookalike with a slightly larger left hand and shoe. Titled ‘Leftism’, it reflects his experience of growing up behind the Iron Curtain. ‘It’s a deformation that is not immediately obvious, but that you figure out later on,’ he explains. ‘We were influenced by the idea of building up the socialist camp, and although the idea may be good, the results can be monstrous. It really affected my life and so it has become my personal monster.’

As originally featured in the May 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*230)

INFORMATION 

‘Lasvit Monster Cabaret’ is on view at Teatro Gerolamo from 17 – 22 April during Salone Del Mobile. For more information, visit the Lasvit website

ADDRESS 

Teatro Gerolamo
8 Piazza Cesare Beccaria
20122
Milan

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Prolific design studio du jour Nendo has added to its ever-plentiful yield at this year’s Salone del Mobile with a tapestry of table-top offerings. Last year, Nendo’s collective imagination ran wild with a futuristic clock installation. Now, at least for this project, the attention is firmly on the practical: kitchen container lids.

Made in collaboration with air conditioning manufacturer, and third-time fair-goer, Daikin, the lids are made from fluoroelastomer – a raw material used in its air conditioning systems. This high-performance rubber, also commonly used in the automotive industry, has outstanding heat, oil and acid resistance and excels in preventing changes in colour and shape over a long period of time – ideal for storing your sauces, condiments and cereals.

Each lid is designed to showcase different possibilities, whether they’re space saving, or mess-preventing. The Pinch lid, for example, conceals a small spoon which appears when pinching its edge, and the Press lid opens like a mouth when pressing down its top, for easy pouring. ‘These lid designs aim to symbolise something between human and an object,’ says the brand, ‘conveying the abstract feeling of air – which in reality we cannot really sense – in a tangible way.’

Alongside its air conditioner-inspired kitchen hacks, the Japanese design stalwart has also turned its hand to tiles for this year’s fair. Ceramic tiles are ordinarily produced using molds, in order to create a smooth uniform shape and finish on the clay. But – no strangers to material provocation – Nendo’s patchwork of spherical and cubed tiles were made using shaped clusters of clay pressed under a solid surface.

Due to the proccess’s unregulated nature, each tile is slightly different, aiming to give a softer, more bespoke feel to your tile tesselation. ‘The clay mixing balance, the moisture level, the pace of pressure and the right shapes and angles were all tested to enable the best possible outcome,’ says Nendo. ‘In the end, it almost felt as if the material itself was the one determining the process and designing the tile shapes for us.’

Ground-breaking, headline-grabbing installation this is not – don’t worry, Milan has these by the beautifully-designed bucket. But we can see these quiet designs (which make up for bells-and-whistles with clarity of vision) becoming household favourites.

INFORMATION

‘Nendo: forms of movement’ showcases 10 new projects (including the two listed here) at Salone del Mobile, 17-21 April 2018. For more information, visit the Nendo website

ADDRESS

Superstudio Più
ART POINT
Via Tortona, 27 Milan
Italy

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When design studio Nendo teamed up with manufacturer Fritz Hansen, they found they were speaking the same design language.

Set to launch at the Salone del Mobile (17-22 April), the N01 dining chair is a perfect meeting of Japanese and Danish design sensibilities. Its designer, Tokyo-based studio Nendo, worked closely with Copenhagen-based Fritz Hansen to create a strong chair with a lightweight appearance.

A gently curved seat and back panel are crafted from nine layers of veneer while the frame, with its subtle incline that embraces the body, is made from solid wood.

Remarkably, although the Danish brand is renowned for its expertise in plywood moulding (some of its most famous chairs such as the Ant and Series7 use the technique) N01 is the Danish brand’s first solid wood chair since the Grand Prix chair by Arne Jacobsen in 1957.

‘It was exciting to learn that,’ enthuses Oki Sato, founder of Nendo. ‘A wooden chair is not an easy product for a designer to make. It is one of the most difficult and one’s personal mentality or philosophy can be expressed through it. Our goal was to finalise a chair which is contemporary, yet maintains the traditional and historical feel of the brand.’

Every time the Nendo team visited Fritz Hansen’s workshop in Belgium – which was every month in the final stages – a new prototype was produced. Uncompromising, Nendo reviewed and refined the design at every stage before arriving at the perfect balance of strength and comfort.

‘This productive process of product development was one of the highlights of my 15-year long career as a designer,’ reflects Sato. ‘It truly was a collaborative process between Fritz Hansen and us. As a result, I do not remember much about the first brief, and I am not even sure if I have actually designed the chair; I feel that we (Nendo and Fritz Hansen) made this chair together as a team.’

To create its appearance of lightness, the brand’s standard production processes had to be challenged. Ordinarily, the joint where the frame and shell meet is thickened to increase strength, which often results in an impression of heaviness. To prevent this, the teams worked together to create a  joint that made the frame and shell appear as if they were touching as little as possible.

‘The difficulty with a wooden chair is that even a small change of size – for example even less than 1mm – can greatly change its appearance and level of seating comfort,’ explains Sato. ‘By changing the shape of the legs or the arms from that of a column to an ellipse, or by narrowing down the edge, or by giving a slight roundness or curve to it, the chair can be given a totally different character.’

The final design is comprised of 23 parts made from a mix of solid wood and veneer. Each piece crafted industrially at a family-owned wood manufacturer in Belgium founded 1924, before being assembled by hand at Fritz Hansen’s Belgium workshop. Its puzzle-like assembly ensures a seamless construction with even the smallest inaccuracies causing the production to start over.

‘If you sit on it, you will notice that this is a Fritz Hansen chair,’ concludes Sato. If you live with it, you will realise that this is pure Japanese design.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Nendo website and Fritz Hansen website

We’ve scoured the globe to find the most captivating, uncanny and memorable design exhibitions. From retrospectives and major blockbusters to thematic exhibitions and solo shows, here’s the design events not to miss this month.

Louis Vuitton Objets Nomades, Hong Kong

Hong Kong-based architect Joyce Wang has transformed two floors of the city’s former Central Magistracy into a grand pop-up that perfectly balances the colonial architecture, contemporary rooms and niches to create an immersive experience of Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades travel-inspired furniture and accessories. The poetic and cinematic feel is enhanced with whimsical touches including a dining-room with walls clad in bamboo and vertical greenery, elegant diaphanous steel mesh archways and a virtual swimming pool. Standout new pieces include a chair in riotously patterned fabric by Raw Edges and Patricia Urquiola’s simple ‘Overlay’ bowl, a sculpture of four leather sheets, created for Les Petits Nomades. Writer: Catherine Shaw

Until March 31; Tai Kwun, Block 9, Central Magistracy, 10 Hollywood Road

Neotenic Design at A/D/O, New York

Leave it to A/D/O to give the emergence of ‘cute’ furniture and design a real name. The term ‘neoteny’ is traditionally a zoological reference to the retention of juvenile features in an adult animal, but it could easily also apply to the proliferation of childlike features and proportions, such as thick legs and rounded feet, in design over the last ten years. Curated by A/D/O members, the design firm Jumbo, ‘Neotenic Design’ brings together objects from designers like Faye Toogood, Konstantin Grcic, Big Game and Pierre Yovanovitch, to show how the trend for rounded, chubby shapes in design actually elicits an emotional response that we are subconsciously seeking.

Until 28 March; 29 Norman Ave, Brooklyn, NY

The strange order of things, by Nathalie Du Pasquier at Pace Gallery, Seoul

This is the second exhibition of work by Nathalie Du Pasquier at Pace in Seoul and it is a particularly personal one, as the French artist and designer curated it herself. In an array of 30 paintings, drawings and ceramics, the show dives into the her engrossing visual world that started life in painting and travels through her time as a founding member of the Memphis Group. ‘For this exhibition, I’m interested in how things chosen from different moments in the last 20 years go together in a specific display,’ Du Pasquier mentions of the edit that forms an abstract dialogue in the space.

Until 25 May; 5F, 262, Itaewon-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul

‘Kite’ armchair, from €1,733, by GamFratesi, for Porro. ‘Formakami’ lamps, from £133, by Jaime Hayon, for &Tradition. ‘Woodlines’ rug, from £652, by Naja Utzon Popov, for Carl Hansen & Søn. ‘Offset’ coffee table, £1,485; stool/side table, £308, both by Philippe Malouin, for Resident. ‘Pin’ bowls, from $27, by Jonas Wagell, for From the Bay. ‘Chrysalis Cocoon’ floor lamp, from £2,099, by Marcel Wanders, for Flos. ‘Bonsai’ sofa, from €3,676, by Claesson Koivisto Rune, for Arflex. ‘Fondale’ vase, £284, by Office for Product Design, for Rosenthal. ‘Jeu de Signes’ fabric panels, part of the Voyage à Kyõto-Shi collection, £161 per m, by Misia

‘Alfred’ table, price on request, by David Dolcini, for Porada. ‘Jens’ chairs, from £1,173 each, by Antonio Citterio, for B&B Italia. Pinch pot, £40, by Constantinos Hoursoglou, for Shibui. ‘Piippu’ pot with filter holder, €165, by Kaksikko, for Skagerak. ‘Ceramics’ pot, SEK3,320 (€340), by Carina Seth Andersson, for Fogia. ‘Taranto’ rug, part of the Fresco & Nimbus collection, £1,367 per sq m, by Luke Irwin. ‘Bankside’ sofa, from £1,888, by Jasper Morrison, for B&B Italia. ‘T’ lamp, £2,121, by Marcel Wanders, for Moooi. ‘Salix’ fabric, £135 per m, by Sahco

‘Sign Filo’ chair, €1,409, by Piergiorgio Cazzaniga, for MDF Italia. ‘Kanji’ lamps, from £430, by Denis Guidone, for Fontana Arte. ‘Blau’ low table, from €1,050, by Fran Silvestre, for Gandia Blasco. ‘Yixing’ ceramics (scattered throughout), from £40, by Christopher Jenner. ‘Ren’ magazine rack, £1,404; side table, £1,536, both by Neri & Hu, for Poltrona Frau. ‘Cato Blues’ rug, part of the Mosaic collection, from £15,783, by Luke Irwin. ‘Torii-S’ stool, £179, by Satoshi Seto, for Karimoku New Standard. ‘20.Venti’ desk, from €4,494, by 967Arch, for MDF Italia. ‘Hven’ armchair, DKK3,995 (€537), by Anton Björsing, for Skagerak. ‘Wander’ light, $250, by Jonas Wagell, for From the Bay. ‘Pensée Masaï’ fabric, part of the Rêve de Burchell collection, £147 per m, by Misia

‘SW’ sofa, from £2,597, by OeO, for Stellar Works. ‘Rift’ mirror, from €4,440, by Giancarlo Bosio and Centro Ricerche, for Giorgetti. ‘Grey Sari Silk’ rugs, part of the Sari Silk collection, price on request, by Luke Irwin. ‘Jens’ chair, from £1,173, by Antonio Citterio, for B&B Italia. ‘Georg’ stool, £239, by Chris Liljenberg Halstrøm, for Skagerak. Bureau, £3,080, by Patricio de Arkaia, for Arkaia. ‘Gaia’ pendant, €798, by Emiliana Martinelli, for Martinelli Luce. ‘Noah’ bed, from €3,785, by Philippe Allaeys, for E15. ‘Kosi Bank’ bench, €1,336, by Moritz von Schmeling, for Zeitraum. ‘Night Owl’ table lamp, £122, by Nicholai Wiig Hansen, for Republic of Fritz Hansen

‘Axy’ table, from €2,545, by Claudio Bellini, for MDF Italia. ‘Dash Dot’ desk set, $425, by Quentin de Coster, for Othr. ‘AP’ stool, £290, by Shin Azumi, for Lapalma. ‘Teorema’ stackable unit, £883, by Ron Gilad, for Molteni & C. ‘Splendido 1000’ rug, price on request, by Matteo Thun, for Object Carpet. ‘Float’ stool, €550, by Nendo, for Moroso. ‘Cutter’ bench, £639, by Niels Hvass, for Skagerak. ‘Tokyo’ chaise longue, from €4,750, by Charlotte Perriand, for Cassina. ‘Cupolone’ pendant, £389, by Elio Martinelli, for Martinelli Luce

Illustrator: Tishk Barzanji. Interiors: Amy Heffernan. As originally featured in the January 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*226)

Recognising the dissolution of boundaries between artistic and commercial design practices, the inaugural Triennial at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) surveys the work of over 100 participants from 32 countries. Beyond its tactile, interactive and technologically impressive veneer lies an epically immersive exhibition. ‘We wanted to evoke a journey of discovery and encourage participation from our audiences with a range of awe-inspiring and confronting pieces,’ asserts NGV director Tony Ellwood.

Registering a world where resources are depleting and old power structures and borders are falling, it also acknowledges emerging alternatives. Featuring tapestry, sculpture, fashion design, painting and drawing in addition to virtual realities, architecture, animation, performance and film, the Triennial examines the consequences of globalisation on a cultural, scientific, political and psychological basis. ‘The artists, designers and innovators are at the forefront of their practices ... working with a range of cutting edge technologies including robotics and 3D scanning and printing,’ adds Ellwood.  

Twenty large-scale works have been commissioned including Ron Mueck’s most ambitious to date: Mass, a modern-day memento mori. An enormous human skull peers beyond the 18th and 19th-century European collection rooms as a glaring reminder of our mortality in an age of material and narcissistic pursuit. Another chamber is stacked with oversized resin-cast skulls recalling iconic images documenting the human atrocities conducted within extremist regimes, whilst serving as a looming reminder of those currently living within them.

Many pieces focus on the movement of people, with several critiquing the refugee crisis. Richard Mosse’s video work, Incoming, uses a telescopic thermal black and white imaging camera developed for military use to document journeys by refugees. The blurred yet intimate imagery creates an uncomfortable friction, giving clarity to their urgent stories.

A crowd-pleaser is Japanese collective teamLab’s immersive digital installation. Aquatic whirlpools and ripples register underfoot in response to people’s presence and movement, reflecting a borderless world where communities must unite to navigate a better future for natural ecosystems. Alexandra Kehayoglou’s Santa Cruz River symbolises the pitfalls of foreign investment in financially struggling countries. Merging traditional rug-making techniques with detailed site analysis and drone footage, her textural 100 sq m carpet is inspired by Argentina’s last free-flowing river currently under threat by Chinese investors eager to convert it into hydroelectricity dams.

Italian design duo Studio Formafantasma provide productive solutions to tackle e-waste with products crafted from recycled hi-tech electronics. ‘Ore Streams’ reinterprets the modernist office with hybrid equipment. Accompanying interviews with manufacturers, Interpol, recyclers, academics and engineers argue that a global economy must develop a universal system of recycling.

Celebrating communities in harmony with the land is Victoria Amazonica, an enormous dome featuring intricate embroidery illustrating stories of nature’s rejuvenation via rain and rivers. Brazilian designers Fernando and Humberto Campana collaborated with the indigenous Australian community arts enterprise Yarrenyty Arltere Artists to illustrate the potential of harmonious cross-cultural relationships.

One of the most interactive commissioned works is Yayoi Kusama’s Flower Obsession, staged inside a fully furnished apartment. Visitors are given a red flower sticker to place where they like inside. Over the duration of the exhibition the walls and objects will be obliterated, revealing an infinity field of red florets. Its universal message, like so many pieces in the Triennial, is that our actions impact our immediate surroundings more profoundly than most of us acknowledge.

INFORMATION 

The NGV Triennial runs until 15 April. For more information, visit the National Gallery of Victoria website

ADDRESS

National Gallery of Victoria
180 St Kilda Road
Melbourne VIC 3006

Architect Jean Nouvel opens up about highlighting the Pontos’ ‘charateristic of simplicity’

Following previous Wallpaper* and Maurice Lacroix collaborations – which began in 2009 and have featured the talents of Gwenaël Nicolas, Arik Levy, Neil Barrett, Rodolfo Dordoni, Patricia Urquiola and Kris Van Assche – architect Jean Nouvel was inclined to push the Pontos’ archetype ‘to its limits, making it clearer and more substantial’, while designer Oki Sato’s approach was to view the watch ‘like a white canvas’.

This two-part video series compliments the original story of the project in the December 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (see W*225), and features exclusive interview content and contributions from both collaborators. As Oki Sato says, ‘A watch is composed of so many small components that are beautifully linked to each other and create a single, harmonious story. Beautiful architecture is the same. The Pontos project wasn’t so much like designing a watch, more like designing a small piece of architecture.

We’ve always had a good thing going on with Maurice Lacroix. Earlier this year, the Swiss watchmaker invited Wallpaper* Bespoke to reimagine its classic ‘Pontos’ design. We added Jean Nouvel and Oki Sato to the mix. Here’s what happened next…

‘Just as an architect will establish a style in his or her work that is immediately recognisable, the ‘Pontos’ has particular characteristics that make it instantly identifiable as a Maurice Lacroix design,’ says David Sanchez, the Swiss watchmaker’s product director.

‘With Jean Nouvel and Oki Sato we have two highly respected names, from different generations, with two very different approaches to their work,’ says Sanchez. This year, the pair have been invited to reimagine the Maurice Lacroix Pontos ‘Day Date’ model.

A classic combination of craftmanship and design, the ‘Pontos’ model has been at the centre of Wallpaper’s previous collaborations in the Maurice Lacroix Bespoke series, which began in 2009. Back then, we asked product and interior designer Gwenaël Nicolas, industrial designer Arik Levy and fashion designer Neil Barrett to reconsider the 'Pontos Décentrique GMT' model. By 2011, architects and designers Rodolfo Dordoni and Patricia Urquiola, and fashion designer Kris Van Assche had contributed to our design collaboration.

‘Design is key to everything we do and we don’t want to be limited in any way,’ says Sanchez, who is based at the watchmaker’s manufacture in Saignelégier. Jean Nouvel was similarly inclined to push Maurice Lacroix’s ‘Pontos’ archetype ‘to its limits, making it clearer and more substantial by employing a single material, stainless steel’.

Nouvel says he wanted to highlight the Pontos’ design’s inherent simplicity, using the plainest numerals, most slender hands, and glass with as little shine and reflectivity as possible. ‘When you achieve this balance of tension, you will succeed in giving an object character. It’s all about the scale of the watch in relation to the size of the individual, and the scale of the watch in relation to the strap, which needs to be relatively abstract to give more presence to the object itself. These are all the parameters you use to integrate an object into a context. The context in this case is a man’s wrist', says Nouvel.

Oki Sato’s approach was to view the watch ‘like a white canvas’. ‘The “Pontos” is not standard. It’s not basic. But it’s inspiring in a very pure way,’ he explains. Sato also wanted to give the design a life that wasn’t about simply wearing a watch: ‘I think we have to think differently about watches now. The next role for the watch is more about the notion of objects that you live with.’ He placed the ‘Pontos’ within a domestic interior: ‘I came up with the idea of a cuckoo clock. The watch lives and functions as part of a clock, then you remove it and wear it on your wrist.’ The colour and finish were paramount considerations. ‘Because I wanted something that really blends into a room, I chose a matt white with a bit of pink gold as detailing.’

As Sato points out: ‘A watch is composed of so many small components that are beautifully linked to each other and create a single, harmonious story. Beautiful architecture is the same. So, for me, the Pontos project wasn’t so much like designing a watch, more like designing a small piece of architecture.’

A version of this article originally appeared in the December issue of Wallpaper* (W*225)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Maurice Lacroix website

Possibly the best place in the world to be delayed for a train, the CoFuFun station plaza at Tenri Station in Japan, designed by Nendo, is an upbeat urban intervention and a new community hub for Tenri City in Nara prefecture. Designed like an over-sized crazy golf range, CoFuFun has a great sense of humour, yet also gets the job done.

The 6000 sq m plaza features a series of white circular structures, that serve as multi-functional pavilions hosting a café, shops, information kiosk, bike rental, a play area, an outdoor stage and a meeting area.

The orbiting concrete forms are also historically informed, referencing ancient Japanese burial structures 'cofun,' common to Nara which can be found dotted around the mountainous area surrounding the city.

While playful, these contemporary interpretations of cofun are very conductive to public space, with the stepped layers welcoming all manner of purposes from seating, to steps, to roofs, to shelves for products in shops, fences, or simply delightful sculptural forms for weaving around on your commute.

Instead of a gateway, this new station plaza is a destination in itself. It takes on board its tasks, to provide space for people to wait, meet or waste time, yet activates its potential to bring people together and revitalize the community.

Nendo couldn’t resist a bit of word play when naming the project, which we can relate to at W*. Blending Japanese lexicon with international appeal, ‘CoFuFun’ refers to the ancient cofun, as well as the Japanese word funfun, which translates as ‘a happy, unconscious humming’. ‘co’ brings in ideas of ‘co’-operation and ‘co’-mmunity and well, hopefully we all know how to have a bit of ‘fun’.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Nendo website

A futuristic clock-making workshop set up in the opulent surrounds of Milan’s Palazzo Visconti, made for an intriguing spectacle at last week’s Salone del Mobile. With its brightly lit, open, black framework design sitting in sharp contrast to the palazzo’s frescoed ceiling and glittering chandeliers, the temporary atelier is the result of a collaboration between luxury Italian watch brand Panerai and ubiquitous Japanese design studio Nendo.

‘Time is not something that you get afraid of,’ says Nendo founder Oki Sato of the exhibition’s theme, ‘but it is something that by feeling it, it becomes very rich and it becomes part of you. I wanted to create an experience where people can feel time and bring home their own time.’

Clock faces of varying thicknesses were cut on site from a length of extruded transparent plastic in front of waiting customers, who could order a clock and then watch as it was sliced and assembled in the workshop. While the minimal square-shaped face displays just four numbers and one-stroke numerals, the clock’s thickness depends on the exact time of the customer’s visit. ‘For example,’ explains Sato, ‘if the time is 10:15 we add 10 and 15 to make a 25mm thickness, and you understand that you were here at 10:15 and you can take home your own time.’

After being cut, the clock proceeds through the different departments of the workshop, where it is polished, sand blasted and assembled by Panerai technicians dressed in white lab coats. The extruded plastic shell from which each clock is cut, is all the time becoming shorter and shorter over the duration of the exhibition. Once the shell is used up, the installation is complete. ‘In other words, the empty-shell-like clock is an apparatus that enables time to be perceived like an hourglass,’ explain the studio.

Even the workshop itself – an open framework of interlocking circular spaces – was designed to to resemble the mechanism of a clock. ‘By walking through the space you feel time and you also feel the craftsmanship of the Panerai watches as well,’ says Sato.

With 2017 marking 15 years since Sato debuted his studio at Milan’s Salone Satellite, the topic of time seems an appropriate one. Since the 2002 launch, Nendo’s rise has been stratospheric encompassing the completion of countless architecture and interior design projects, product designs and collaborations with the likes of Cos, Tod’s, Kenzo and Cappellini to name just a few.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Nendo website and the Panerai website

With its debut design exhibition open now, Hong Kong’s M+ presents an intriguing selection of 120 pieces of 20th and 21st century design, offering a tantalising glimpse of the museum’s impressive wider collection of some 2,500 works.

The initiative is designed to stimulate thinking about how perspectives on design change across time and geographical space. With this in mind, the show neatly sidesteps any expectations of presenting an encyclopaedic range of iconic design, and instead focuses on delivering a tightly edited collection of familiar household items. These include the woven, plastic-covered rattan chairs ubiquitous to homes in 1950s Hong Kong, through to design classics such as Nendo’s 'Cabbage' chair, constructed from recycled, sliced and folded rolls of paper.

According to the M+ lead curator of design and architecture Aric Chen, the compact 310 sq m gallery called for especially close collaboration with Hong Kong-based studio Collective, whose well-lit, intuitive layout opens with 'Histories', a series of spaces examining design across Asia, including Japan’s post-war reconstruction period, post-independence nation-building in India, collectivisation in Mao’s China, and Hong Kong’s manufacturing heyday. The highlight is a masterclass in sculptural simplicity, in the form of a modernist low table and legless chairs designed by Isamu Kenmochi in the late 1960s.

The second part of the show, 'Constellations', presents an eclectic mix of more recent works including Kuramata Shiro’s whimsical ‘Miss Blanche’ resin and flowers chair, intriguing ‘Fragments’ vases by Hong Kong-based potters Latitude 22n and a monolithic wardrobe by the Chinese designer Li Naihan, inspired by Rem Koolhaas’ Beijing CCTV Headquarters tower.

‘The show is not about telling you what design is, it is about letting you discover that there is more than one way of seeing the same thing,’ says Chen. The M+ Pavilion is the first permanent space on the West Kowloon site; the main museum building designed by Herzog & de Meuron will open in late 2019.

INFORMATION
’Shifting Objectives: Design from the M+ Collection’ is on view until 5 February 2017. For more information, visit the M+ website

ADDRESS

M+ Pavilion
West Kowloon
Hong Kong

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An eloquent curation of modern glasswork has come together at Miami’s Luminaire Lab for a fantastic cause. In a collaboration with international auction house Phillips, the design store is hosting its ‘GlasLove’ auction and exhibition in aid of cancer research until 11 October (as well as a physical auction and gala dinner preceding this on 6 October).

Following their prior PuppyLove, DesignLove and PaperLove auctions, Luminaire founders Nasir and Nargis Kassamali this time set their sights on the fluidity and versatility of glass. ‘The idea started in 2015 at Oki Sato’s “Nendo Works: 2014–2015” exhibition at the Museo della Permanente in Milan,’ explains Nasir. ‘My wife, Nargis, and I were completely enamoured by the exhibition. This is when Oki Sato and Glas Italia graciously decided to donate the pieces for our auction series, and ultimately this was what confirmed the idea.’ Those 30 playful conjoining furniture pieces by Nendo span across the Lab’s minimalist Miami design district space, informally acting as the backbone of the installation.

Elsewhere, the eclectic and delicate – yet powerful – group of works ticks all boxes for discerning design shoppers. Lighting is up for grabs in the form of lollypop Campana brothers chandeliers, floating ethereal Bocci lights, and botanical Tord Boontje wonders. Those after charming smaller pieces can be tempted by Todd Bracher’s scientific vessels, Andrea Branzi‘s artistic silhouettes or intricate floral forms courtesy of Marcel Wanders.

‘Poetically and metaphorically, glass reflects the spirit of those battling cancer, and thus was an ideal material for our fundraising auction to benefit cancer research,’ Nasir muses. All money raised will be donated to the Braman Family Breast Cancer Institute at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center (itself part of the University of Miami).

INFORMATION

The ’GlasLove’ online auction and exhibition runs until 11 October. For more information, visit the Luminaire website

ADDRESS

Luminaire Lab
3901 NE 2nd Avenue
Miami, FL 33137

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Sushi and a bonsai plant. These are the metaphorical comparisons Nendo's founder Oki Sato makes of his studio's style of design. Design that can produce 100 pieces a year, and simultaneously work on 400 at the same time. Design that astonishes the rest of the industry, with its ability to maintain an impeccable level of purity and hurl out product after product. 'I place a lot of importance on the freshness of the ideas.' He reveals, in his comparison to sushi, 'I try to work quickly, shaping the fish before the heat of my own body is transferred over to it.'

It comes as no surprise that someone was soon going to suggest the idea of a retrospective for the Japanese inventor, but for such a young brand that formed just over ten years ago, it is still quite a feat. The show follows on from the year survey of the studio's work at Salone del Mobile in 2015, and the mesmerising triumph of this year’s the 'Light and Shadow' marble exhibition with Marsotto Edizioni in Milan. It is quite fitting that what comes next is a question of what is between these opposites, in-between the conveyer belt of products, in-between the personal and professional life of Oki Sato and Nendo design.

Housed in the Ron Arad-designed Design Museum Holon in Tel Aviv that just celebrated its fifth anniversary, ‘The Space in Between’ is pulled together by curator Maria Cristina Didero as an almost scientific investigation of the designer’s processes, imagination, shapes and materials, and how they all intrinsically connect. The exhibition opens with a new site-specific piece that brings together the wares of Glas Italia and Caesarstone, titled 'In the shade'. Located within the rusted steel ribs of the Holon's atrium, the contrasting sheets of material cajole with shade and lighting. This tactically introduces us to a running theme with the show's subtleties. ‘Japanese designers really try to look into light and shadow, rather than colours,’ Sato explains.

Following this is the mighty plethora of designs across two floors of the impressive edifice, kindly categorised by Didero into six divisions of 'Between': 'Textures', 'Objects', 'Relationships', 'Boundaries', 'Senses' and 'Processes.'

The research starts on the lower ground floor with an array of 12 unique Nendo chairs, each piece from a different category. Every seat shows his abstract, slightly fairy-tale like versions of an everyday product, from the ‘Fadeout’ chair that blends wood and glass to the ‘Diamond’ chair that looks more like an atomic structure than a chair.

The upper floor is host to the rest of the 74 designs, each arranged in bright white boxes, allowing the different forms to stand out. Here the show travels from the ‘Processes’ section, which highlights the studio's delicate side in the intricacy of the patchwork glass for Lasvit all the way to the ‘Objects’ section that contains the compact emergency aid kit for natural disasters 'MINIM+AID'.

This epic leap from one panache to another continues, whether its is a USB stick paper clip for Elecom that they created with Italian designer Luca Nichetto, or geometric chocolates for Maison&Objet Paris, their elegance is maintained. 'It is possible to find a balance between industry and poetry,' Sato explains, 'I call it the balance between the right brain and the left brain.'

Witnessing such masterpieces bound together, we are also invited into Sato's personal self, which is imbued in every piece. 'Design is part of my everyday life, like breathing or sleeping,' he tells Didero, 'I think that the day I begin to consider design as work will be my final day as a designer.’ We certainly hope that day never comes.

INFORMATION

'Nendo: The Space in Between' is on view until 29 October at Design Museum Holon, for more information, visit the museums's website.

Photography: Takumi Ota

ADDRESS

Pinhas Eilon St. 8 Holon
5845400
Israel

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We’ve become accustomed to Japanese design studio Nendo delivering its quirky signature creative take on products and spaces; from a chocolate bar that creates different tastes via diverse textures, to a collective bird-apartment tree house and library-inspired pop-up for Starbucks. 

The firm's largest and most ambitious project to date continues the studio’s original approach with a revolutionary new story-telling interpretation of the traditional department store retail experience.

The two-year project has transformed Bangkok’s 18-year-old Siam Discovery department store, now centred around a ‘lifestyle laboratory’ theme that eschews the traditional categorisation of products by brand. Instead, an unconventional open plan ‘Exploratorium’ offers a series of lifestyle experiences around ‘laboratories’ designed to create the sort of comforting, emotional experience lacking in e-commerce.

The renovation of the 40,000 sq m mall also addresses the building’s unusually narrow frontage. Here, Nendo extended and combined numerous existing circular atriums dotted throughout the building to create an airy elongated 58m space.

Frame-shaped boxes with video monitors (202 of them), digital signage and displays of merchandise were installed along one side of the atrium, creating an easy-to-navigate visual directory for the whole store, while escalators were repositioned to run through the atrium, facilitating a smoother flow of visitors.

Meanwhile, the unconventional new double-skinned facade glass is decorated with a pattern that reflects the 'stacked box' atrium installation.

The designers reworked the interiors for all common use areas and most of the self-curated retail spaces, gradating floor and ceiling finishes to give the impression that different materials are stirred together.

‘In this way, we made a point of creating an atmosphere where people can feel relaxed and feel free to approach the stores,’ says Nendo founder Oki Sato.

They designed everything from a transparent rocking horse to a line of T-shirts featuring Hello Kitty targeted at a male audience. The project has been developed over the course of two years on a scale never before seen

Nendo designed motifs at 13 different locations around the sales floors. They include laboratory equipment such as beakers, flasks, and test-tubes, and diagrams of molecular structures, nucleotide DNA sequences, microscopes and amoeba, smoke and bubbles

The retail points designed by Nendo include spaces for electronics featuring displays that reference microscopes. Their lens-like forms provide surfaces for displaying merchandise illuminated by integrated lighting

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Nendo’s website

The pure, graphic simplicity of Nendo is a focal highlight of this year’s Collective Design Fair, which opens its doors at Skylight Clarkson Square in downtown New York tomorrow. The Japanese design collective unveils a new collection of furniture and lighting entitled ‘Trace’, which poetically visualises the relationship between a sketch and the finished product in three-dimensional form.

‘[This] was about visualising the unseen,’ explains founder Oki Sato. ‘People know that you cannot stand in front of [a door] because it’s going to open, but if you look at architectural or technical drawings, you will notice that there are these lines and arches that show how the doors will open. By visualising the movement that people recognise, but don’t really care about, I thought that could create some animation to the furniture pieces.’

‘It is always about recognising the things that we do not see in everyday life,’ he continues. ‘‘The theme is in line with the [50 Manga Chairs] that we showed in Milan this year, which was also about showing emotions and movement.’

Comprised of twelve furniture pieces, as well as an array of lighting, the Trace series has been installed at the entry of the fair’s industrial space. The lights – lacquered metal sconces that each draws arcs in space to articulate the swinging of a pendulum – cover an 85-foot long wall. The furniture – rectangular wooden cabinets with drawers and doors that swing open in different, unexpected orientations, delineated by slender metal frames – flank both sides of the entrance corridor to ensure the fair starts off on a dynamic note. Nendo has also created the reception desk for this year’s edition.

‘Since [everything] is at the entrance of the fair, it had to have this inviting feeling. The way we selected materials, like wood and a warm lighting, we wanted to make them have a friendliness and welcoming feel to the space,’ Sato explains.

The collection has been made possible by Friedman Benda gallery, who has represented the group since 2009. ‘To Nendo and its ever-expanding audience, design is a mental state in which anything can be reimagined and become part of its universe,' says Marc Benda. ‘With every project, Nendo tells a unique, positive, and highly relevant story.’

INFORMATION

Collective Design Fair runs until 8 May. For more details, visit the fair's website

Photography: Adam Reich

ADDRESS

Collective Design Fair
Skylight Clarkson Square
550 Washington Street
New York, New York

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Everyone is well aware of the mesmerising qualities of marble. Its decadence, its power, its weight, its sculptural qualities – the list goes on. In a unique Japanese-meets-Italian collaboration during Salone del Mobile, it was the intensity of its colour that was celebrated. Nendo presented Marsotto Edizioni’s marble inventory cut completely in half: Carrara on one side, Marquina on the other.

Titled ‘Light and Shadow’, the concept seemed relatively simple, but the effect was magnificent (and very Instagram-friendly). Upon entering the slightly off-piste Brera location, one visualised the almost illusionary monochromatic, symmetrical divide. The result was perfected thanks to Nendo’s new novelties for the Verona-based marble kings, half produced in each shade. In true Oki Sato style, he created a plethora of new products, each available in both black and white, some even split into both, including abstract tilted side tables called ‘Sway’ and ‘Split’ low tables.

Both sections were atmospherically enveloping. On the white side, a slightly illuminated, purist vibe was felt among David Chipperfield's grand dining table and James Irvine’s imaginative shelving. These were set against the blinding white walls, flowers and books that decorated the space. Alternatively, the dark side evoked a romantic sensuality through semi-matching pieces that the designers realised in both tones. Visibility was skewed as we focused on whimsical designs including Naoto Fukasawa's 'Marbelous' low table and Ross Lovegrove's bookends. Outdoors, the Italian brand showed off its Carrara with a garden set utilising alternative shapes created from the brand’s divine wares, including the mighty ‘Arena’ table by Wallpaper* Design Award winner Jasper Morrison.

'It is tinged with surprise, irony and delight – it is also however part of a universal language,' explains Mario Marsotto about the familiarity of all the natural material, elegantly set on a pedestal by Sato. 'And during its realisation all of us were captivated and spurred by a pleasantly harmonious energy.'

INFORMATION

For more information on the new collections, visit the Marsotto Edizioni website

At last year's Salone del Mobile, Italian stalwarts Kartell travelled back in time to pay tribute one of the forefathers of Italian design, Ettore Sottsass. For 2016, they are taking it back again, but this time in scale and age with the launch of an inaugural kids collection.

This isn't the first time the Italian brand has toyed with the concept of children’s furniture. The first entirely plastic Kartell '4999' chair by Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper – created back in 1964 – was intended for kids, while 'Sistema Scuola' by Centrokappa also tapped into this smaller world. Over 50 years later, the Milanese brand is revisiting the idea with these 'toys for living' that nod to the fun aesthetics of Kartell’s lively collections.

The company chose from their star-studded list of international designers for this first haul of whimsical plastic silhouettes, all in pastel and pop hues. In keeping with simplisitic styles, Japanese designer Nendo created a transparent curvaceous rocking horse alongside 'smile' stools; Philippe Starck presents a streamlined 'Airway' swing; Piero Lissoni provides a toy car and tractor; and Ferruccio Laviani, a vibrant games table.

‘As well as being functional, our products are intrinsically playful, fun and engaging’ says Claudio Luti, president of Kartell. The new kids line allowed the designers to experiment in an area that they perhaps have not before, engaging with a younger audience. Where Nendo approached his stools with the idea of the emotion of a smile, creating a face in the imprint of the seat, Laviani got into the youthful mindset for his building game, which he describes as 'trying to approach their world more than ours'.

In full celebration of the launch, the brand is also bringing back its loved icons in a new child friendly palette, as seen in Ron Arad's 'Bookworm' and Giulio Polvara's modular bookcase. They are also providing a customisation service, adding names and drawings to the 'Lou Lou Ghost' or 'FL/Y' lamp – a little added interactive design fun for smaller people to enjoy.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Kartell’s website

Japanese design company Nendo has created new chocolates for their 'by | n' range, that emphasise texture while also delivering on taste. Released in 2015, ‘chocolatetexture’ maintained a conventional chocolate texture, while playing around with form and placement; bringing to the fore questions on how the way the chocolate was being consumed – when bitten, swallowed or melted – impacted on the taste itself.

The ‘chocolatetexturebar’ takes this concept a bite further. The bar is divided into 12 segments, each with unique striped, dotted, zigzagged and chequered patterns that allow one to enter a hypothetical ‘new taste dimension’ via subtle haptic differentiation. The bar comes in five different flavours: milk, strawberry, white, bitter and matcha.

To accompany the bar is the ‘chocolatemixer’. Bottled in tiny test tubes are dried mango and raspberry candies, popping sweets that explode with flavour and heart-shaped sugar puffs to be custom-added to flask-like chocolates by lifting their white chocolate lids. Making a perfect concoction of one part flavour, one part feel has never been such fun.

Both 'chocolatetexturebar' and 'chocolatemixer' are set to be released in February.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Nendo's website

There are a dozen reasons as to why Nendo’s founder Oki Sato has received the crown for Maison & Objet’s designer of the Year: his massive retrospective of his work in Milan earlier this year and his ability to design 100 products per year are just two. The new MNIM +AID emergency preparedness kit is yet another.

Inspired by the tragedy of natural disasters that have occurred in his home country of Japan over the years, he has taken to create a compact kit that is extremely useful yet sophisticatedly designed with the Nendo-minimalist touch. Sticking to the bare necessities that are required during an earthquake, the set is made up of five pieces, all packed together in a 5cm wide tube.

Included in the collection is a radio which doubles as a charger, a raincoat, a lantern (that can be charged with the radio), drinking water and a plastic case that you can fill as you like – recommendations are a first aid kit and medicine. All of the items are neatly lined up in the sleek silver, white or black tube that can be carried like a backpack and masqueraded as an everyday object that you would never imagine could carry a life saving kit.

All the pieces exist in smart mini black tubes themselves, simply numbered 1-4 in large type, another clever touch for an emergency. Ultimately, Nendo has gone back to survival basics, but combined this with truly intelligent and hi-tech design-savviness.

INFORMATION

Photography: Kenichi Sonehara

Nendo has turned interior architecture on its head in Kenzo Tange's Sogetsu Kaikan Tokyo building, where the renowned design studio has reimagined the Aoyama offices and Connel cafe. 

Rather than starting from the notion of 'interior functionality', Nendo was influenced and inspired by 'the exterior aesthetics' of the 1977 building. The half-mirrored curtain wall exterior and planar construction of the Sogetsu Kaikan has been cleverly matched with diagonal flooring, L-shaped lines and an overarching minimal aesthetic.

'The result is an interior design that allows one to get a strong sense of the character and form of the building as a whole,' explains the design studio. 

The pleasing minimalism of the offices continues into the cafe, located on the second floor. Keeping Tange's original design untouched, it was the floor and furniture that received the Nendo treatment here. 'Stream' flooring has been fitted to smoothly unify the partitioned space, creating a sense of consistency throughout. Glossed black counters and refurbished 'Tulip Chairs' by Eero Saarinen do the same via furniture and fittings.  

The cafe itself is chiefly managed by Nendo, inspired by their growing collaborations with a wide variety of people.

'We have named it “Connel”; a play on the Japanese word “koneru”, meaning “to knead” or “to mould”,' they explain. The word 'nendo' itself means clay, a pleasing parallel that they've expanded on to create the logo (by taking the Nendo 'n' and bending it into two 'c's). A playful take on the name and logo can be found in the cups themselves, which have unique, kneaded handles as well. All in all, a beautiful play on words, lines and style. 

But to the science. This year we have restricted the core top 100 list strictly to product designers. And employing complex algorithms, ‘big data’ and the purest subjectivity, we have ranked them according to influence, market value, quality and quantity of output, reputational shift and that more mysterious sense of momentum, of rightness for right now. Those who have had a good year will find themselves risen up the ranks; others may get that sinking feeling. We have also added extra lists: of architects who turn their pencils to product design; of CEOs and other corporate chiefs who have matched vision and ambition with surefootedness; of graphic designers who snap our grid; of interior designers who create and compose the most seductive of spaces; and of designers yet to hit 40 but already making an impact. Or course our rankings are a provocation, but they are also a mapping of power and influence, of larger shifts and forces.

Let the debate begin...

Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, has changed behaviours and created ‘needs’ we never knew we had, turning technology’s cult underdog into the world’s most valuable company. With Steve Jobs gone, and everyone alert to the slightest Apple miss-step, Ive is now facing greater public scrutiny. The many and various permutations of the Apple Watch and strap, and the offer of a high-end version – a shift from Apple’s usual policy of limiting choice and upgrades to under-the-bonnet performance enhancements – are seen as Ive’s innovations. And rumours and counter-rumours about the Apple Watch’s success, or lack of, continue to swirl. The latest chatter is that Apple is working on a self-driving car, currently being tested in California.  

Outside of Ive, Marc Newson is the world’s highest-profile industrial designer. The pair are also long time pals. Little surprise then that Ive recruited Newson to help out with the design of Apple Watch. He has no official title at Apple but Newson says that 60 per cent of his time is now spent on Apple business and he makes monthly trips to Cupertino. Newson already had watch experience, launching the Ikepod line in the 1990s. He has also designed concept cars for Ford so it seems a relatively safe bet that Newson is currently at work on the Apple Car. And if the last year wasn’t eventful enough for Newson, this May one of his ‘Lockheed Lounge’ chairs sold at auction at Phillips in London for £2.4m, the highest price yet paid for the work of a living designer.

London-based designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have had a breathtaking year, capped by the publication of a monograph celebrating their work, and the award of the 2015 London Design Medal in September. This supremely versatile and gifted pair have been on an unstoppable tear ever since their universally lauded design for the Olympic torch in 2012 lifted them into truly rarified air. The pair now helm three studios, each founded to expand the range of projects they can take on, ranging this year from an understated shower control for Axor to the contract to design interiors, exteriors and livery for the new London Crossrail line.

An Eindhoven Design Academy alumnus, Jongerius’ career began with the Droog-infused Dutch design renaissance of the early 1990s. Always one of the most influential and intelligent voices in design, she made waves in 2015 with a call for restraint in the design world’s ceaseless quest for the novel. ‘It’s time to rid ourselves of the obsession with the new.’ She practised what she preached, too, finally unveiling the long-awaited fruits of a four-year process of revisions to her iconic ‘Polder’ sofa for Vitra, and revealing subtle tweaks to the design and scale of the collection, while remaining true to its groundbreaking aesthetic.

Oki Sato took Milan by storm in April with an audacious retrospective of his work over a single year, showcasing his impressive range and attention to detail in collaborations with companies ranging from Glas Italia and Moroso to Chocolatexture and Tod’s. In fact, he designed more than 100 different products over the year, and routinely works on more than 400 designs at any one time. This year, Sato, who initially set up Nendo ten years ago with five fellow architecture graduates, also received the crown for Maison & Objet’s Designer of the Year, opened a Milan office, and shifted into large scale architectural projects for the first time, winning commissions for a shopping centre in Bangkok and a station and leisure complex in Kyoto.

Ronan and Erwan’s stellar mid-career status was highlighted last year with the award of the 2014 London Design Medal. Subsequently, France’s most influential industrial designers revealed the ‘Kaari’ table collection, their first collaboration with Artek, and the ‘Palissade’ range of outdoor furniture for Hay, alongside strong new work for Vitra and Glas Italia. Next up is their first electronic product, the Serif TV for Samsung, which is intended to integrate the television completely into the sphere of domestic design.

A product launch seen by 4.8 billion TV viewers, a first solo retrospective at the V&A, commissions everywhere; to say Heatherwick has had a good few years is an understatement. The British designer’s King’s Cross atelier is a global creative hub, responsible for everything from London buses to gin distilleries. Heatherwick is the quintessential contemporary creator, an architect, engineer and designer rolled into one, with an obsessive attention to detail and a delight in materials.

From health-tracking wristbands to app-controlled thermostats, Béhar is the designer for our perma-connected age. Last year, Chinese conglomerate BlueFocus Communication Group acquired a majority stake in his firm Fuseproject. His XO laptops for One Laptop Per Child are now distributed in 60 countries.

This year Morrison, whose career began in the 1980s, curated the prestigious ‘80!Molteni’ exhibition in Milan and added a collection of mobile phones to his well-respected Punkt collaboration, but he will always be the ultimate Super Normal guy, with a cool shop, transforming the everyday into desirable objects, including this cafetiere for Rowenta from W*068

Our joint Wallpaper* Designer of the Year, the work of German design superstar Grcic combines analytical rigour, formal discipline and a twist of humour. Recent projects include chairs for Plank and Magis, sanitaryware for Laufen, and branding and interiors for the Hugo Boss IMOCA 60 racing yacht.

A graduate of Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and London’s Architectural Association, Arad is working on Tel Aviv’s tallest building, a show for the Royal Academy, and St Pancras’ sought-after Terrace Wires installation. He remains the design and architecture world’s great iconoclast

Despite his work for IDEO and the Muji CD player, Fukasawa’s sublime understanding of Japanese craft sensibility has few better expressions than last year’s ‘Cha’ tea kettle for Alessi, his ‘Roundish’ sofa for Maruni Wood Industries, this year’s kitchen appliances for Muji and his sleek smartphone model for KDDI.

Dixon remains one of Britain’s best-known design names, even outside the design community. His studio has been busy this year: working on apartments at Greenwich Peninsula and the Multiplex department store at Selfridges, and he has also just been secured by Caesarstone to work on a major collaboration

Hayon has long been revered for his radical embrace of colour, decoration and cartoon-figure curves. His recent highlights include a large ‘Urban Perspectives’ installation for Mini, sports-style pieces for Galerie Kreo, and a redesigned Room 506 at Arne Jacobsen’s SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

Collaborator Bruno Borrione finally got his name on the door last year as he and Starck formed a ‘new’ design agency, S++B. Since then, Stark has revealed a 2018 hotel design for Centre Pompidou Metz, created a prototype home for PATH and had various Milan launches with Kartell, Flos, Glas Italia, Axor, Magis and Tog

Humberto and Fernando’s creative upcycling and design improvisation – influenced by the street life of Santa Cecilia, the area of São Paulo where they have their studio – has been the basis of a string of bestsellers for Edra, as well as big-ticket edition pieces. The pair also work with local NGOs and workers’ co-ops.

The Spaniard is constantly proving she is at the top of her game with her hugely covetable creations. Not only is she our reigning Wallpaper* Designer of the Year, but she has formalised her ongoing collaboration with the Poltrona Frau group, heading up its design sector and becoming art director of Cassina.

Windows for Prada and a collection and installation for luxury leather maker Valextra helped demonstrate the versatility of Gamper, who made his name in 2007 with the found-object speed-design project ‘100 Chairs in 100 Days’. Milan gallery Nilufar then commissioned him to do similar with discarded Giò Ponti pieces.

Milan-based Giovannoni is as adept at futuristic furniture as at cartoonish homewares. His ‘Bombo’ stool for Magis, with its swivelling plastic seat and adjustable chrome-steel base, is widely copied, and his ‘Girotondo’ tableware for Alessi has sold over ten million units. He is now opening an office in Shenzhen.

Born in 1932, Munich-based designer Maurer designed his first light fitting in 1966 after a life-changing trip to New York, where he encountered the pop art movement. Simply called ‘Bulb’, his debut design was a brilliantly witty take on what a lamp could be and marked the start of a legendary career

This year, industrial designer Lovegrove - pictured here in W*101 - has applied his ergonomic forms to photorealistic rug designs for Moooi, while 2014 saw him produce 3D-printed gold jewellery for the Louisa Guinness Gallery. Material science, form and technology dominate, as with Liquidkristal, an architectural glass designed for Lasvit

Following Charpin’s takeover of Apartment 50 in Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse in Marseille last year, he has now commandeered the Robert Mallet-Stevens-designed Villa Noailles in Hyères for a new show. Last month also saw the opening of an exhibition of his tables and ceramic vases at Galerie Kreo’s London outpost.

This year’s Wallpaper* Design Awards judges, Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu combine city block-sized projects with more delicate small-scale work, garnering design awards and commissions from Camper, De La Espada and Le Méridien, as well as creating a clutch of boutique hotels, flagship offices and private dwellings

Häberli credits his motivation to his Argentine upbringing, and his problem-solving abilities to his Swiss heritage. He became a star for his ‘Origo’ dinner service for Iittala in 1999, and has gone on to work for brands such as Moroso and Georg Jensen. This year, he was chosen by BMW to design its annual Milan installation.

Hays is the driving force behind luxury American furniture label BDDW. Based in Philadelphia, he is as much an entrepreneur as he is a designer, having built the company up from a small Brooklyn start-up to a respected handmade furniture empire, with a Milan outpost and its own general store, within ten years

The soft, rounded forms of Dutch designer Bakker’s everyday objects are carefully crafted in metal, wood, glass and ceramic, often the result of painstaking production processes. His delicate forms found the limelight in Amsterdam this summer with a solo exhibition, ‘Containing Content’, focusing on his pourers (pictured)

Twins Nikolai and Simon began life as Texan builders with a Hollywood twist, but their skill and experimental approach saw them branch out into design at the turn of the decade. Now based in LA, the brothers’ new surrealist style graces spaces like the city’s Ace Hotel and the Guerlain store in Paris.

Pictured: Beast stool.

An alumnus of the Alchymia, Cavart and Memphis movements, De Lucchi is an Italian design legend whose work graces museums across the globe. He is responsible for bestsellers like the ‘Tolomeo’ lamp for Artemide, and the ‘First’ chair for Memphis. His new coffee maker for Alessi looks set to join that pantheon

From Peckham bottle recycler to Design Miami jury member, designer Boontje, known for his craft-inspired ideas, has come a long way, and his ‘Garland’ light shades are now a modern classic. He recently developed a jewellery collection for the Van Gogh Museum. Next up is an exciting commission for PostNL.

Pictured: Boontje's 'Chamber of Wonder' exhibition, at Swarovski Crystal World in Wattens, Austria

British artist Anthea Hamilton made international news last month with an installation inspired by a 1972 model by Pesce. Now 75, the Venetian designer’s career spans over half a century, and he has always ensured that his colourful, often otherworldly designs go beyond function and aesthetics

Milanese architect Dordoni has spent his career designing and providing art direction for some of the biggest players in Italian design – Artemide, Cappellini, Minotti and Foscarini have all benefited from his creative input. More recently, he set up Dordoni Architetti to focus on his architectural projects.

London-based design duo Luke Pearson and Tom Lloyd have become the go-to practice for public-realm design, with past projects including innovative healthcare furniture for the NHS and street furniture for the city of Bath. Recent projects include a contemporary workplace furniture collection for Teknion

Renowned for his refined designs and forthright opinions, the godfather of Italian design has had a consistent and influential presence in the industry for over 50 years. A steadfast supporter of sustainable, open-source design and small-scale, local production, Mari’s principles have always been years ahead of their time.

Pictured: W*090

Belgian-Dutch duo Nynke Tynagel and Job Smeets continue to explore the boundaries between art and design. From a roller disco inside Buenos Aires’ Faena Art Centre (pictured) to the irreverent ‘Banana Show’ lights at Belgium’s Samuel Vanhoegaerden Gallery, the pair’s refreshing maximalism was prominently on display

Last year, Lissoni secured a major commission from Ritz-Carlton to create a waterfront complex in Miami and a minimalist setting for a Renaissance art show in Milan. This year, he presented ‘1:1 Piero Lissoni’, an exhibition held in a vast New York loft in collaboration with a host of Brooklyn design studios

Branzi’s ‘Heretical Design’ show at Italy’s MARCA museum reminded commentators of the designer’s astonishing breadth and fecundity. He is a frequent collaborator with architectural magazines such as Domus and Casabella, and his shelving systems continue to attract the plaudits of a younger generation

De Cotiis’ work ranges from interiors for T’a bistrot in Milan, and the Upper Hills development in Shenzhen, to furniture for Ceccotti and his own label Progetto Domestico. Last year, he opened a gallery in Milan, and launched a limited-edition series inspired by Beirut in collaboration with Carwan Gallery

Conny Freyer, Eva Rucki and Sebastien Noel formed Troika in 2003. Their installations blend techno-longing with video and interactive elements, and grace spaces from Heathrow’s T5 to major galleries. Recent work, like Dark Matter and Limits of a Known Territory (pictured), show a more brooding, sculptural side

The London-based Cypriot has taken his first proper dip into furniture this year, designing a sofa for SCP. Boasting a similar geometrical characteristic to his captivating lighting objects for Flos, the long-time Wallpaper* collaborator has shown he can master both delicate precision and a sturdy framework.

Woodgate has brought his pared-down sophistication to the likes of Cappellini and SCP. He drew international attention in 2008 with his ‘Surface’ table for Established & Sons, and in 2014 he crowdfunded his lighting brand to produce a collection optimised for LEDs, including the ‘Core’ pendant in translucent marble

Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings epitomise Dutch design diversity, creating fabrics and furnishings in an eclectic array of forms and colours for the likes of Hay and Moooi. This year they have released their first book, Reproducing Scholten & Baijings (pictured), which takes us on a journey of their creative development

A graduate of Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Gilad is one of those rare designers able to work with ease across varying scales of output, from limited editions to mass production. He even managed to reinvent the showroom with an inspired and witty conversion for Molteni & C in Brianza.

Sam Hecht and Kim Colin founded their London studio in 2002 and have since turned conceiving the beautifully useful into an art form. Their reputation rests on creating a few simple product designs, with a twist, each year for the likes of Muji, Droog, Herman Miller, Issey Miyake, and Established & Sons

Tokyo-based interior designer Katayama is head of Japanese firm Wonderwall, which strides across the globe from one hi-tech Uniqlo store to another, creating art-cum-retail projects like Ginza’s Comme des Garçons store, and a chocolate-bar ceiling for the café at Meiji, Japan’s largest chocolate company, along the way

The enfant terrible of Italian product design is never happier than when he is pushing the boundaries of taste. Recent work includes a hyper-masculine headquarters for his beloved AC Milan football team (pictured) and a much instagrammed, model-kit installation for Tommy Hilfiger at Milan’s La Rinascente store.

Wanders’ work ranges from breakfast pieces for Alessi to upscale interiors for the Mondrian South Beach hotel. The studio recently opened an appointment-only gallery space at its HQ in Westerstraat, housing the Dutchman’s collectable designs (which will set you back the best part of $40,000 at auction)

Baas has parlayed a winning way with colour-impregnated clay into a design empire, under his own name and, since 2012, as part of the entity DH PH. Despite this, he’s not too kooky to win awards, create iPhone apps or see his ‘Grandfather Clock Veneer’ sold by Phillips de Pury & Company New York for over $134,000

Focusing on sustainability, and characterised by robust raw materials and expressive lines, Motta’s furniture celebrates the exuberant energy of his native Brazil, and speaks to his passion for surfing, yoga and nature. This autumn he marks the 40th year of his career with a retrospective at New York gallery Espasso.

Pictured with Leandro Massarelli, June 2010, W*135. 

Tokyo-based designer Yoshioka creates installations exploring balance and transparency for clients like Swarovski and Cartier, while products for Glas Italia and boutiques for Issey Miyake (pictured) take more substantial forms. This year he held his first solo exhibition in Kyushu, at the newly renovated Saga Prefectural Museum

Born in Israel, educated in Switzerland and based in Paris, Levy’s vast resumé of work spans lighting, jewellery, graphic design, furniture and packaging. This year he added something new to the list, working with bentwood for the first time in a collection produced for Salone for the Czech company TON. 

Pictured: W*109

An apprentice of Michele De Lucchi for more than 11 years, Nigro is barely 40 but has already won the Designer of the Year award at Maison & Objet and designed collections for the likes of Ligne Roset, De Padova and Hermès (pictured). For this year’s Salone he created the scenography for Japanese car company Lexus

From traditional cabinetmaker to sought-after product designer, Diez’s career ranges from hi-tech manufacturing all the way through to contemporary kit furniture. The German designer - pictured W*158 -  has created products for Thonet, Moroso, Established & Sons, Hay and Emu, all of which share his trademark pared-down precision

Italian architect and designer Thun’s progressive, sustainably luxurious interiors are taking over the civilised world. This year saw the launch of Matteo Thun Atelier, devoted to handcrafted design, with a collection in glass and ceramic, as well as an island resort in Venice for Marriott, designed inside and out by Thun, pictured here

For more than a decade, New York-based designer Burks has pursued his ongoing fascination with the transformative potential of design in emerging economies. This plus stellar work with brands such as Roche Bobois, Dedon, Ligne Roset, Boffi and Swarovski saw him rewarded with a prestigious Cooper Hewitt National Design Award this year

Navone spent her early career working with Italian design doyens such as Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini. Her dedication to the craft of design is reflected in her lively work for brands ranging from Gervasoni and Crate & Barrel to Ercol, with whom she launched a seating collection this year, pictured here

A graduate of industrial design school ENSCI, Sempé - pictured here W*151 - is known for her versatility and lightness of touch. Since opening her studio in 2000, she has established long-term relationships with firms such as Ligne Roset and Wästberg. Her first cutlery collection, Collo-alto for Alessi, launched in Paris this year to rave reviews

Since his breakthrough in 2002 with the outlandish interiors for London restaurant Sketch, Duchaufour-Lawrance’s work has included identities for Air France and Yves Saint Laurent cosmetics, as well as furniture for Bernhardt Design and Ceccotti Collezioni, and lighting for Baccarat and Gaia & Gino.

Wired from the outset thanks to early chandelier collaborations with Ron Arad, Hussein Chalayan and Zaha Hadid, Waldemeyer’s work has tracked the LED’s rise as a source of entertainment. His technical background helps keep him on the cutting edge, with installations ranging from the wearable to the truly immersive

His latest monograph features a preface by Tom Ford and a forward by Zaha Hadid, but with a career that spans more than 60 years, the German-born Kagan has plenty of famous admirers to call upon. A prolific midcentury furniture designer with a sinuous style, this year he added a must-read blog to his many talents

Kitchen-design genius Wangen first turned heads with Boffi’s ‘K2’ monoblock, with a steel top that concealed the cooking system and slid out to become a dining table. He is currently reviving this own line with the minimalist ‘Forever’ kitchen, and he co-designed The Flushing Meadows Hotel & Bar, opened in Munich last year.

Hong Kong-based since 2006, Young has successfully married Chinese manufacturing capacity to his refined Old World design aesthetic. This combination is seen to best effect in his watch ranges, in his re-engineered Moke beach buggy and this year’s James Irvine-inspired ‘Chelsea Boy’ glass for WonderGlass.

Increasingly, the success of Jouin’s interior design agency JouinMankin is pulling him away from product design. His two-year refurbishment of a Saint-Lazare priory was shortlisted for a Wallpaper* Design Award, while the latest incarnation of his Rivea restaurant for Alain Ducasse opens in Las Vegas next month

Another year, another Red Dot award for Massaud, for a work chair and ottoman series for Coalesse. In recent years, the French designer has also completed some ambitious architectural projects and, for this year’s Salone, his first perfume as part of Brera’s Garden of Wonders exhibition (pictured)

The designs of Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard sit in foyers, museums, stores, restaurants, hotels and private collections around the world, a sensuous fusion of form and rigour. At this year’s London Design Festival, the duo marked ten years since their first major collection with new pieces for David Gill Gallery, pictured here

The husband-and-wife team celebrated 21 years of their design partnership Palomba Serafini this year. The pair turn their hand to everything from lamps and bathtubs to super yachts, and recently completed the first standalone Kartell by Laufen showroom, in Milan, in part to showcase their own collection

Texan designer Hunt founded her eponymous company in 1984, and it went on to become one of America’s finest design brands, collaborating with the likes of Lindsey Adelman and Christian Astuguevieille. In 2014, Knoll acquired Holly Hunt enterprises for $95m, starting a new chapter in the history of the brand.

Pictured: 'Angelika’ sofa

Hutten set up his studio in 1991, joining the Droog collective two years later. His work follows a ‘no sign of design’ notion, making for functional objects permeated by a playful, conceptual attitude, and features in the permanent collections of museums such as the Stedelijk in Amsterdam and the Vitra Design Museum

Having worked as a model and bag designer for Raf Simons, Verheyden veered into home accessories in 2009 with his wife, Saartje Vereecke. His simple forms allow his rich materials to speak for themselves, and encourage users to appreciate the rituals of daily life. Collaborators include Joseph Dirand and Rick Owens.

Anglo-Indian duo Jonathan Levien and Nipa Doshi draw inspiration globally. Standout pieces include a cabinet for BD Barcelona that nods to the corrugated roofs of shanty dwellings and an armchair for Hay structured like a Japanese hand fan. They also rebranded cosmetics label Madina.

Pillet honed his skills with Michele de Lucchi and Philippe Starck before setting up his own studio. Along with curvaceous furnishings for the likes of Modus, Porro and Tacchini, he has also created sumptuous spaces for hotels in France (pictured is his makeover of Hotel Pullman Paris Eiffel Tower) and Morocco, and transformed Lancel’s retail presence around the world

Industrial designer Rasmussen is brand director at Neal Feay, which specialises in anodised aluminium creations. The firm has collaborated with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Dior and Design Miami, and most recently produced a digitalised ocean wave for this year’s London Design Festival at Somerset House, pictured

Working under the studio name Ora ïto, Ito Morabito has amassed a portfolio as substantive as that of any French designer. His re-imagining of the rooftop gym of Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse into art space MAMO made him the natural choice to design Cassina’s beautiful LC50 tribute to the architect for D’Days 2015 in Paris.

Having given Dutch Design capital letters, Droog has grown into a mini-empire. Co-founder Renny Ramakers opened the one-bedroom Hotel Droog concept in Amsterdam in 2012, a store and gallery in Hong Kong in 2013 and published an anthology last year. In 2015, her mini hardware store concept turned heads at Salone

Furniture is rarely as refined as that created by Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen, with their rigorously austere pieces evolving naturally out of their creative backgrounds (his in sculpture, hers in photography). A colourful furniture and lighting collection for London’s Viaduct gallery this year hinted at a future direction.

Grawunder worked with Ettore Sottsass before going solo in 2001. She designs installations, interiors and objects, as well as pieces for the likes of Glas Italia and Boffi. She has a light installation at Robert, at the Museum of Art and Design in New York, and has had solo shows at Paris’ Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

Gitta Gschwendtner’s ‘Chair Bench’, which unites six iconic chairs from different eras and matches up their tops and bottoms randomly, is emblematic of her experimental approach to furniture. She has also designed exhibitions and is contributing to a new cancer centre for Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London

Parisian legend Pergay (sitting on the far left) continues to create in her eighties. She defined hi-luxe design before the current generation was even born (Dior, Hermès, Pierre Cardin and Fendi were all early adopters), and her vast back catalogue of curvaceous stainless steel designs has never been more coveted on the international auction circuit

Founded in 2006, the studio of Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn creates poetic works that tap into technology and nature. The duo’s Shylight installation at the Rijksmuseum, pictured, is shortlisted for a Dutch Design Award, while their kinetic glass installation for this year’s Venice Art Biennale explored human’s desire to fly

A furniture collection for Arflex Japan saw the quintessentially luxe designer experimenting with high-tech modelling systems to elegant effect. A former head of visual communications for Louis Vuitton, he set up his studio in 2000, creating crisply detailed interiors for the likes of Tacchini, Glas Italia and Ethimo

The line-up might change more often than a 1970s prog rock band (the studio started as a foursome in 2004, became a trio in 2009, and turned duo in 2014) but the work continues to intrigue. They bring a strong playful sensibility to their designs, creating products for the likes of Moooi, Thonet, Kartell, Moroso and Porro

The radical oeuvre of Israeli-born Benshetrit includes the shattered and reassembled ‘Vase of Phases’ for Rosenthal, and the brilliantly plumed ‘Peacock Chair’ for Cappellini. He also created an island of luxury residences in Abu Dhabi, the chic SoHo Synagogue in Manhattan, and is venturing into skyscraper design

Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows are masters of understated luxury. Their eponymous furniture line unites modernist architectural principles and artisanal production, and they have also collaborated with Bally, Herman Miller and Geiger. The duo launched a lifestyle gallery in Milan last year, and recently introduced a clothing collection, pictured

Stylist and designer Toogood imagined two opposite set-ups at this year’s London Design Festival – a cloakroom containing 150 compressed foam coats at the V&A, pictured, and a redrafted drawing room at Somerset House. Her client list includes Hermès, Tom Dixon and Comme des Garçons

Crafted in copper, hand-blown glass, brass and knotted rope, Adelman’s lighting designs have evoked everything from celestial bodies to sea creatures. The Manhattanite takes a hands-on approach and this summer created a music video to showcase her latest collection

The Brazilian designer spent his formative years working with Sergio Rodrigues before opening his studio in 2011. Recently named Maison & Objet Americas Designer of the Year 2015, he works mainly in wood and metal, producing furniture for his eponymous brand. This year saw new pieces in wood for Espasso (pictured) and his first monograph

Chan set up lighting design studio Isometrix in 1984. With a rare grasp of lighting technology, he has enhanced spaces such as Georges at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Wolseley in London, The Gramercy Park Hotel in New York, pictured, and The Upper House in Hong Kong. Among his collaborators are Jean Nouvel and Zaha Hadid.

Borrowing from a medieval armour-making technique, RCA graduate Hasan developed an acclaimed furniture range in hardened leather, which then translated into a Wallpaper* Handmade project with Poltrona Frau and a mannequin project for Fendi. He has also collaborated with Kvadrat and British interiors brand Linley

French designer Matali Crasset’s showstopping offering at this year’s Salone was the mobile ‘Self-made’ seat for Campeggi, which reimagined the sofa as a series of individual modules that could be carried like suitcases. She followed that up with a tabletop set that included impossibly understated, sycamore plates

A pioneer in the integration of technology and domestic design, French designer Lehanneur was this year appointed head of the Paris-based Aesthetics Research Centre of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer. A 20-sided wireless speaker for Binauric was another 2015 coup.

Pictured: an otherworldly set for Audemars Piguet at Art Basel 2014

Making everyday objects special, Bergne’s hits include his ‘Dizzy’ glass, with a conical base that gives a spinning effect, and the stackable and infinitely adaptable ‘Square’ chair for Tog. His broad output also includes a hot milk service for culinary think-tank Milk Factory, and the torch for 2015’s first ever European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan

Alonso’s work (stackable steel cutlery for Italesse, reclaimed wood chairs for the V&A and folding tables for Cos and Hay) belie his intellectual design process. He creates products that are understated, poetic and functional, and was one of the winners of this year’s Swarovski Designers of the Future Award.

Midwesterner Bernett’s foray into design began with a chance encounter with Le Corbusier’s ‘LC4’. His ‘Metropolitan’ and ‘Tulip’ for B&B Italia, pictured, which pay homage to Ejnar Larsen and Eero Saarinen, are among the best selling chairs in the US. He has also worked for Cappellini, Ligne Roset and Design Within Reach

Marigold is best known for artfully awry shelves assembled from branches and crates, and metal homewares that take on wooden patterns. His eclectic client list ranges from Oyuna to Paul Smith and Sony, and recent work includes bowls and cups for Meissen, and galvanised steel shelving for SCP.

Pictured: Split series, 2007

Azambourg has put himself at the forefront of material technology with fibre-optic lamps for Galerie Kreo, a leather-and-foam briefcase for Hermès weighing only 700g, and seating for Cappellini created with the same techniques as Bugatti racing cars. He recently launched his own label, Auto-Edition

Bracher trained in New York and Copenhagen, led Tom Dixon’s design studio and was then creative director for Georg Jensen. Cindy Crawford’s beauty mark informed his ‘Tod’ table for Zanotta. Having lent his talents to Herman Miller, Humanscale and 3M, he is now lauded as the future of American design

Slovenian product and interior designer Zupanc’s work is witty, visually delightful and pristine. Her commissions include Moooi and Moroso, and her ongoing collaboration with Sè was unveiled in Milan last year and expanded with new pieces in 2015. She also has her own brand of precious and whimsical furniture

Willenz, who founded his Brussels studio in 2004, has an industrial, minimalist style, making him a favourite of Established & Sons, Cappellini and Hay. This year he worked with marble brand Retegui on a series of mirrors (pictured), shelves and accessories, and created bold, geometric rugs for Ligne Roset, Menu and Nodus

Vivid colour is the signature of Italian designer Lenti, who founded her eponymous company in 1994 after training in graphics. Cheerful forms and high-tech fabrics (often designed in-house) have made her one of the most sought-after names in garden furniture. She has just released a line of rugs with Maharam

De la Fontaine trained with Richard Sapper and worked with Piero Lissoni and Patricia Urquiola before founding design collective Dante-Goods and Bads with his wife Aylin Langreuter in 2012 (pictured is a table from the brand). He has also worked for Rosenthal, among others, for whom his timeless ‘Format’ collection remains a best seller

Stockholm-based Italian designer Nichetto has worked for a host of major brands. His impressive 2015 output includes the ‘Nick’ bed for Molteni & C (pictured), the ‘Plass’ light for Foscarini and silvered-glass side tables for Verreum, all shown in Milan, plus an installation of new lamps for Swedish company Hem at the London Design Festival

Park’s poetic pieces are crafted from slabs of translucent resin, tinged in block colours and seamlessly joined, providing a thoughtful meditation on purity and ambiguity. The South Korean designer splits his time between Rotterdam and Paris, where he recently had a solo show at Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery, pictured

They say you should never judge a book by its cover – nor indeed a fragrance by its bottle – but sometimes the temptation is just too great. Having an equally beguiling bottle and scent helps avoid any bias. To that end, the Oki Sato-led Japanese studio Nendo has teamed up with Paris fashion house Kenzo to create the look – and logo – of the esteemed brand’s new unisex fragrance.

A dark purple glass bottle in the shape of a tiny totem holds Kenzo’s three new scents, created for and inspired by a generation of globalisation.

‘Where previous generations have felt differences of nationality, language, and religion more acutely,’ explains Nendo, ‘the younger generation of today have comparatively fewer cultural divides to cross, enjoying a greater shared sense of identity.’

Described as ‘a new tribe’, the three unique colognes are modeled after the ancient totem poles of Native Americans; a simple structure which stands for an identity and has the power to gather people. Like the wooden monuments they were inspired by, the bottle is made of various segments of different shapes and sizes, stacked to create a solid and monolithic design.

‘This simplistic and bold design is a highly symbol-oriented attempt to capture and blend the primal with the transnational; two defining essences of the generation at which this new fragrance is aimed,’ says Nendo.

The scents within cater for both men and women: Totem Orange is a floral and zesty scent with bitter orange and vetiver; Totem Yellow a sparkling and joyful take on pink grapefruit and leather woods; and Totem Blue a fruity and sensual blend of pineapple, cardamom and cedar.

A neat black and white chevron design adorns the box, too, should you rather judge the fragrance by it’s ’cover’.

INFORMATION

For more information visit Kenzo Parfums

Photography: Akihiro Yoshida

Online design studio Hem is breaking ground in more ways than one this London Design Festival. First of all, they are opening their a bricks-and-mortar space in Covent Garden's Seven Dials. Secondly, they are one of the 10 Designers in the West Wing at Somerset House. Last but not least, they are unveiling their chain shelving, designed by Japanese design studio Nendo. 

It is this out-of-the box project which catches our attention now. In a Wallpaper* video exclusive, Oki Sato explains the process behind his modular shelving unit and genius behind the design. 'When design gets this simple,' he begins, 'detailing is important. We were able to work on the small details, find the best materials and best solutions.’

It is important not to confuse ‘simple’ with basic however. Its minimalist design carries an understated appeal and the variety (of colours, combinations and finishes) on offer prevents the aesthetic from going stale. Instead, the creative reins are handed to the customer.

'The boxes lock together to look like a chain, [which is] extremely flexible [and] brings out the creative side of the user.'

The line fuses simplicity with customisation using the online configuration system, enabling customers to choose from a plethora of designs and colours. The boxes, open-ended on one side, connect by utilising a Hem designed proprietary system, which allows a variety of unique units: from a solid set to a lighter, spaced out one; sized simply as a bed table or into wall-spanning checkerboard cases, with a selection of six different colours and finishes perfect for any room.

INFORMATION

Hem’s pop-up shop will be open from 19 September - 31 January 2016 at 9 Earlham Street, London WC2H 9LS; www.hem.com

Multifaceted in design yet consistent in sentiment, Oki Sato successfully blends the unlikely commercial combo of organic cosmetics, library and cafe in 'Beauty Library', a minimalist concept store created for the Japanese cosmetics company Nature's Way. 

The concept for the boutique – developed by Sato's lauded design studio, Nendo – was to explore organic cosmetics in a library-like setting, with neatly stacked shelves of beauty products rising up to the store's ceiling. The cafe – itself serving all-organic salads – sits along one side of the store, with an annexed seating area set across a small courtyard. The pairing isn't as disjointed as it might sound; Nendo's archival method of displaying the cosmetics encourages testing and browsing, to allow a customer to 'casually try out every single product in the store as if ordering a beverage.' (It's no coincidence that the shop's logo is also designed to look like a square bookshelf filled with letters.)

The library aspect is further embellished by the store's use of up-to-date digital technology – a nod to the the increasingly contemporary concerns of organic living. Each product has a dedicated QR code displayed alongside, enabling visitors to store corresponding information on their phones or tablets and make purchases at home.

Moreover, the didactic aspect of the concept is made more literal with the inclusion of an integrated study area, allowing customers to sit between the shelving systems and learn more about the qualities of healthy cosmetics.

The store is located on Aoyama Street in Tokyo – perhaps the city's most vibrant shopping area – and is surrounded by myriad upscale boutiques. A handful of these are equally striking in appearance – the Herzog and de Meuron-designed Prada and Miu Miu stores, and the Comme des Garçons store co-conceptualised by Takao Kawasaki, among them – though the 'Beauty Library' contains easily as much substance as it does style. 

ADDRESS

Beauty Library
3-12-12 Kita-Aoyama Minato-ku
Tokyo, Japan

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Hidden within the gridded timber walls of Atsushi Kitagawara Architects' Japan Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015, is a quiet all-white dining space conceived by the country's champion of design, Oki Sato's studio Nendo. Titled 'Colourful Shadows,' the work comprises a sloping black dining table, surrounded by a set of 24 matching chairs and laid with an array of black tableware, spanning the length of the 11m x 3m space. As visitors enter, the furniture gradually increases in height, creating a warped sense of perspective and encouraging guests to use the chairs as stepladders to get a closer look at the objects on display.

Correlating with the Expo's underlying theme of ‘Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life’, each of the 16 pieces of tableware were designed by the studio and produced via a different traditional Japanese craft or local industry. The exhibition has been deliberately designed in a monochrome palette so as to not distract from the intricacies of the craftsmens' work.

'In the novelist Junichiro Tanizaki’s essay In Praise of Shadows', says Nendo, explaining the thinking behind the show's title, 'there is a passage about eating a yokan [a traditional sweet made from black bean paste] in the dark in order to develop a keener palette. Just as in this exhibition, all information pertaining to colour has been removed to encourage the spectator to focus on other more essential aspects of the exhibited pieces.'

When Japan’s largest sushi-chain Sushiro decided to boost the image of its rather bland interiors, they turned to Oki Sato and his team at Nendo. The resulting Tsumamigui is a chic monotone affair positioned as a 'Smart Sushi Dining' experience. Nendo headed all the design elements, including uniforms, tableware and logo, resulting in a unified and clean interior, with a variety of seating options and noticeable no sushi counter or conveyer-belt in sight. If well received by discerning young Japanese OL’s (office ladies) who are the main target of the design, there is a good chance we might see many more of these popping up around Tokyo.

ADDRESS 

1 Chome-30-10 Aobadai
Meguro-ku
Tokyo-to 153-0042
Japan

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'Everyone I wanted to see in Milan is in this room right now,' beamed Rossana Orlandi behind her oversized white sunglasses as she mingled among the architects and designers who gathered at a special dinner to toast this year's Wallpaper* Design Award winners; and we couldn’t have agreed with the design doyenne more.

High-profile creatives such as Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci of Dimore Studio (whose 'Lamp 061' won for Best Space Race), Rodolfo Dordoni (winner of Best Executive Office), mingled happily with high-powered CEOs including B&B Italia’s Giorgio Busnelli and Poltrona Frau Group’s Dario Rinero, together with local hotshots such as chef Carlo Cracco and art director Tanja Solci.

The setting was the dramatically-lit Carlo e Camilla in Segheria, which is not only Milan’s current top dining destination - and run by Solci and Cracco - but also the winner of the Best New Restaurant award, crowned from a shortlist chosen by Wallpaper’s pernickety staff. Other winners including Designer of the Year Patricia Urquiola (who joint-scooped it with Konstantin Grcic) and architect Vincenzo de Cotiis (Best Grid for his ʻDC 1406Aʼ brass chandelier) were caught at home with a nasty bug that had half of the city bedridden last week - although Urquiola's partner in business and life, Alberto Zontone, was there to accept the award on her behalf.

But the crowd nonetheless swelled with some of our favourite Milan-based talent including art director Giulio Cappellini, architect Fabio Novembre, Gufram owner Charley Vezza, Molteni’s Francesca Molteni, curator Caroline Corbetta and Salone Satellite founder Marva Griffin Wilshire. They were joined by Vogue Italia editor-at-large Cesare Cunaccia, art director Roberto da Pozzo, Philipp Plein head of marketing and PR Ludivine Pont, Seletti owner Stefano Seletti, Henraux president Paolo Carli and Leclettico owner Claudio Loria.

The awards were handed out in a rowdy, rambunctious way by our own fearless Editor-in-Chief Tony Chambers who kept spirits high, while guests feasted on a sumptuous meal of lime-zested risotto and lamb shanks, staying in the glorious setting into the wee hours of the morning - which is exactly our kind of awards evening.

The interior of Japanese women's brand Beige,'s newly opened concept store is a lesson in restraint and space efficiency. Located in a small space in Tamagawa Takashimaya shopping centre in suburban Tokyo, the serene interior is the unmistakable work of Japanese design studio Nendo.

Known for its modest, punctilious collections, Beige, challenged Nendo to create a multi-functional space that could accommodate multiple uses: a shop for selling interior goods, a library space for book-lending and a gallery space for hosting regular events and art exhibitions in addition to the main clothing retail space. Nendo responded by slicing the space up vertically with a steel grid system, installed 2.05 metres above the floor, that functions as both a book shelf and clothes rail. Books are held in place by magnetic book ends, while a variety of unfinished, box-shaped fixtures that dot the floor are used as display plinths or step stools for accessing the bookshelves above. Highly flexile and visually neat this is an interior that perfectly embodies the ethos of its owner.

ADDRESS

Beige,
Tamagawa Takashimaya Shopping Centre
3-17-1 Tamagawa, Setagaya-ku
Tokyo 158-0094,
Japan

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As if creating nine shops for Theory (two in Paris, one in London, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo and Osaka and another in LA) wasn’t ambitious enough, Tokyo-and-Milan-based studio Nendo has reinvented the traditional shop floor at the new Melrose boutique. Rather than emphasising product displays, the designers have focused on flow and a sense of exploration. The functional, loft-style interiors were carefully considered to control the traffic direction around the store space. As a result, the sartorial message of creative director Olivier Theyskens is clearer than ever. 

ADDRESS

Theory
8428 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90069
USA 

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For ten years we have cast our nets far and wide in our quest to uncover all that is excellent for our annual Design Awards. To wrap up the first decade in suitable style last month, we jetted over to San Francisco - the worthy joint winner of this year's Best City award - to throw a party inside Design Awards partner Airbnb's brand new headquarters.

A mariachi band serenaded guests - including the likes of Yves Béhar, the Haas brothers, Neri & Hu, Ambra Medda, and Johanna Grawunder – as they arrived en masse at the landmark 888 Brannan. Stepping through the doors, they were met by our gleaming Nendo-designed trophies, displayed on plinths, while pages from the Design Awards issued lined the walls.

Revellers then made their way into the building’s striking atrium, which was lit up in the prismatic colours of the cover of our February issue. Art director, illustrator and filmmaker Christian Borstlap’s eye-popping video of our Judges’ Awards was projected overhead, while shapes a-plenty were thrown on the dance floor below to beats provided by musician Adam Bainbridge of Kindness.

Bubbles flowed freely throughout the night thanks to Veuve Clicquot, while top local mixologist Rye on the Road offered up Caorunn Gin cocktails – including San Franciscos, of course. Guests enjoyed Asian-inspired nibbles with a twist, including steamed Berkshire pork buns and crispy panko-crumbed corn croquettes – a nod to our Best Bar Snacks victors. Our waiters, meanwhile, were clad head-to-toe in Levi's, winner of our Best Denim gong.

Not all good things must come to an end, however. Guests took home a bespoke tote bag containing a Wallpaper* City Guide to San Francisco, a miniature bottle of Caorunn Gin, chocolate from Pump Street Bakery (our Best Chocolate winner), a Levi's gift card, as well as a specially designed ‘Best of 10 Years’ commemorative supplement. Here's to another 10 years...

With the start of the New Year comes a renewed drive to streamline our working lives. Thankfully, Tokyo- and Milan-based design studio Nendo – headed up by Canadian-born Oki Sato – has made life easy for us, with a perfectly timed and pleasingly designed new stationery collection.

Sato's philosophy is to re-imagine quotidian objects and needs in a way that provides what he epigrammatically calls a small ‘!' moment. To wit, the one-time Wallpaper* Design Award winner offers a neatly realised set of desk essentials that has plenty of those, including everything from a bottomless ‘outline’ pencil tray to a traditional Japanese gift-giving envelope and a cubic rubber band.

The designs may be simple, functional and clean but, on closer inspection, reveal clever conceits. The ‘contrast ruler’, for example, features markings that fade from black to white (making it easy to use on both dark and light surfaces) while the ‘circle tag’ playfully transforms traditional sticky notes into pie chart wedges.

The stationery collection will be released under Nendo’s own brand, by | n, which recently made its debut with a set of chocolate paints.

Stockholm Furniture Fair may have had a big leaning towards office design this year, offering up and abundance of wooden conference tables, chairs and sound-proofing devices - but our top-scoring stand was rather more whimsical. UK-based design duo Raw-Edges created a 'Picnic' installation for Danish brand Kvadrat, evoking a forest atmosphere in the midst of the trade fair.

Over a thousand swatches of 20 different Kvadrat fabrics hung from a wooden structure of Dinesen Douglas Fir, cocooning the stand like a weeping willow. This made for an inviting place to ponder the brand's new launches. Meanwhile, over in its showroom in town, Kvadrat had another hit with The Wool Parade, an installation of Bauhaus- and theatre-inspired shapes by Doshi Levien upholstered in woolen fabrics, which also became characters in an animation by Studio AKA.

Another highlight at Stockholm Furniture Fair was the central meeting hub, conceived by Wallpaper* Design Award 2012-winner Nendo. White-framed structures were interspersed with a new outdoor seating collection, as well as older pieces by Nendo, all in shades of white - echoing the snow-covered landscape of Stockholm. Nendo first showed at Stockholm Furniture Fair's 'Greenhouse' - its annual hot house for independent designers and schools - in 2004, so the fair was happy to welcome back founder (and Wallpaper* Design Awards 2013 judge) Oki Sato as its guest of honour.

This year's Greenhouse proved as full of green shoots as ever, with a particular highlight being the work of Grand, which has produced a beautiful collection of basket-woven cupboards. An equally pleasing vase set came courtesy of Hallgeir Homstvedt.

Elsewhere, the fair was awash with pastel hues, pale woods and metal fixing details. We particularly liked the collaboration between Wästberg and Dinesen, who created a beautiful and solid collection of wooden seating and low tables that sat in harmony with the new Wästberg hanging lamp.
 
Of the satellite events elsewhere in Stockholm, the talk of the town was Svenskt Tenn, whose window gallery room was a delight. It offered up Joseph Frank designs re-interpreted by the very refined hand of Michael Anastassiades. But the design week's hottest ticket was the Wallpaper* and SodaStream Lock In party at the recently renovated Spirits Museum, the first in a series of soirees tied to the international fair agenda.

The Tokyo and Milan-based design group Nendo has had a busy few months. Earlier this year, they were named 'designer of the year' by our illustrious panel of judges for Wallpaper's 2012 Design Awards. Now, in celebration of its tenth anniversary, the company - headed up by Oki Sato - is in the midst of a spate of exhibitions. Following a retrospective in Tokyo, they are currently putting on a duo of shows in Paris during Maison & Objet.

Settling in at Galerie Pierre-Alan Challier until 17 March is 'Object Dependency'. The canny collection of 14 pieces looks to invert the functional purpose of furniture with a series of 'weak furniture' by Nendo, intentionally created to be structurally incomplete. The pieces - the most memorable being a bookshelf that only becomes stable when books are placed on it - are inherently dependent on the addition of objects.

Carpenters Workshop Gallery is host to 'Static Bubbles', a testament to the Nendo approach of reshaping the familiar. A collection of poured and blown molten-glass tables (created in conjunction with glass-blowers) are on display along with a selection of sculptural objects fashioned out of agricultural wire.

As is typical, 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. Canadian-born Sato provides what he epigrammatically calls a small '!' moment. And over the past ten years, there have been plenty of those moments at Nendo.