Tokyo’s Designart festival showcased site-specific works and events across the city, inviting participants and guests to see both design and their city in a new light.
Tokyo’s new Design Week came in the form of a contemporary merging of both design and art this year, as Designart Tokyo. Now in its second year, the event aims to fill the Design Week void and further connect Tokyo’s design community and participants with industry players on a global scale.
Designart Tokyo was founded by a diverse group of six renowned Tokyo creatives, including Akio Aoki of Miru Design and Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham Architecture. The group’s diversity and integration into Tokyo’s design community ensures a genuine and broad overview of design. Designart Tokyo 2018, which ran from 19 to 29 October, showcased stellar, contemporary design works and collaborations.
Sprawled across the entire city, various locations hosted Designart’s diverse installations, exhibitions, product launches and events. They all followed this year’s theme of ‘Into The Emotions’. Intentionally held simultaneously with Tokyo Fashion Week, Designart Tokyo is a reflection of the merging industries and their influence on each other.
This year, for example, renowned architect Sou Fujimoto collaborated with Canada Goose to produce an installation displaying down feathers (usually found inside garments) in a conceptual 3D floating grid arrangement at the brand’s flagship store.
At the Designart Gallery space, Tokyo designer and artist Noritaka Tatehana presented his homewares collection titled Ghost, where his work in traditional Japanese craftsmanship techniques such as woodblock prints can be found adorning pillows and a lounge cover.
Emerging designer Ryuichi Kozeki also presented his minimalist, award-winning lighting series.
Alongside products and furniture, there were large-scale presentations that initiated new conversations about the future of the city. In the Avex Headquarters Building in Aoyama, a site-specific installation by architect Yuko Nagayama and artist Akira Fujimoto addressed the future post-2020 Olympics and ParaOlympics and their potential influence on the urban context.
One integral highlight to the week that further connected the local community was a day-long conference titled Bridge that focussed on themes of craftsmanship, technology, art, work, clothing and living.
Featuring global speakers leading in their field – including a diverse panel incorporating British designer Bethan Laura Wood and Tokyo-based fashion designer ANREALAGE – the insightful symposium sparked new conversations in design.
Minä Perhonen’s Akira Minagawa and ElleDecor’s Ryuko Kido explored the importance of craftsmanship in design, and Majorca-based architects Jaime Oliver and Paloma Hernaiz of architecture firm OHLAB who spoke with Cibone and Dean & Deluca’s Masaki Yokokawa on the future of living spaces.
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
The Sub-Zero Wolf showrooms in Sydney and Melbourne provide a creative experience unlike any other. Now showcasing all-new product ranges, the showrooms present a unique perspective on the future of kitchens, homes and lifestyles.
Suitable for applications ranging from schools and retail outlets to computer rooms and X-ray suites, Palettone comes in two varieties and a choice of more than fifty colours.
Create a configuration to suit your needs with this curved collection.
In the pursuit of an uplifting synergy between the inner world and the surrounding environment, internationally acclaimed Interior Architect and Designer Lorena Gaxiola transform the vibration of the auspicious number ‘8’ into mesmerising artistry alongside the Feltex design team, brought to you by GH Commercial.
The Sherman Centre for Culture and Ideas (SCCI) is back this year with its vibrant ten-day festival, the SCCI Architecture Hub 2019. Tickets are going fast!
Employing some design influenced by nature can greatly improve the wellbeing, and aesthetics, of the modern office as these 5 ideas prove…
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
London-based Carmody Groarke and Paris-based TVK have been announced as winners of a milestone competition for the new Bibliothèque nationale de France conservation centre.
The brief for the new Government Agency office in Canberra was a challenging combination of high performance and high concept. The Mill Architecture + Design turned to Milliken to bring the ambitious project to life.
Savage Design’s approach to understanding the relationship between design concepts and user experience, particularly with metalwork, transcends traditional boundaries, blending timeless craftsmanship with digital innovation to create enduring elegance in objects, furnishings, and door furniture.