Rie Sakamoto is a graduating art student from Japan’s Tama Art University. For her thesis exhibition, she decided to turn her eyes to the lowly rubber band, a stationary item overlooked in contemporary design, which values functionality and scarcity. Working entirely with rubber bands, which have limited functionality and are definitely not scarce, Sakamoto created a line of garments that were on display at an exhibition in Tokyo last week.
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On a semi-annual basis, Japanese paper company Takeo curates solo exhibitions by Japanese graphic designers, inviting them to experiment with the company’s paper and printing technologies. The results are often inspiring in ways that you didn’t think paper could inspire, and their latest exhibition was no exception. Their 15th “Aoyama Creators Stock” feautred graphic designer Masashi Murakami.
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For his first assignment in Australia, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has designed The Exchange, a multipurpose structure located at Darling Square in Sydney, and housing a library, food hall, restaurants and a day-care facility. In contrast to the high-rise buildings in the surrounding area, the exchange is a spiraling, light-filled ‘hive’ designed to be a soft and warm low-rise structure integrated with the square.
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Blue Bottle Coffee has opened a cafe at Tsujimura Bicycle Shop, a shop in Kyoto frequented by locals and bicycle enthusiasts for a hundred years.
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MUJI has been in the homebuilding business for 15 years, unveiling a new prefabricated home roughly every 5 years. And their latest is unlike any home they’ve designed in the past. Their previous line-up, which consisted of 3 homes, were predominantly focused on urban living where space comes at a premium and the only reasonable solution is to build up. Yo no Ie, or Sun House, is the company’s first single-story home designed for suburban use.
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Several words come to mind when we hear the word bank: old, cold, money, stress and fees, just to name a few. But the power of design was on full display last month when Higo Bank, a regional bank in Kyushu, opened its newest branch and completely transformed all our preconceptions of how a bank can make us feel.
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How do you design an institution for early learning that fosters respect for nature and a deep sense of community? Just ask Hibino Sekkei; they’ve been thinking about it a lot. Lead architect Taku Hibino and his firm specialize in the design and construction of learning facilities for early education. And one of their latest works is a renovation project called YM Nursery, located in Tottori prefecture.
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Toyota, one of the world’s largest car manufacturers, announced this week that they are going to bring their vision of the future, to reality. The auto giant is teaming up with Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and his firm BIG to design and build a “prototype city of the future” on the site of a former car factory located near the base of Mt. Fuji.
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The artist Shohei creates dauntingly dense and bold ballpoint pen drawings. He happens to be the son of Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of Akira, and goes only by his first name, perhaps as a way to escape the hegemony of his father’s shadow. Either way, he recently wrapped up a travelling exhibition of new works that was held in Melbourne, Hong Kong and then Tokyo.
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As 2020 kicks off, the real countdown to Tokyo’s Summer Olympics begin. And the organizing committee isn’t wasting any time. Today, they unveiled a series of official Olympics and Paralympics posters designed by renown artists from both Japan and abroad.
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