At this year’s TOKYO MIDTOWN DESIGN LIVE EXHIBITION, 27 participants are exploring the theme Shake, Switch-up, Activate. Of course design supports societies functioning, enhances daily life, and elevates the everyday—but it also crucially carries the mission of challenging conventional values, and fostering critical observation of the world around us too. Some works shake things up boldly, others do so gently. Take a moment to feel the messages behind each unique expression, and let yourself reflect on what a new and better of everyday could look like.
Period
10/10 Fri. - 11/5 Wed.
Time
Grass Square / 11:00 – 18:00 *Cancelled in the event of rain. *Close at 13:00 on November 5 only. Galleria B1 / 11:00 - 23:00 Galleria 1F / 9:30 - 23:00
Established in 2013 by Makoto Suzuki and Ayumi Koyama. In addition to spatial design, in recent years they have also been working on self-initiated projects focusing on social issues.
Chairs and benches made from reclaimed marbles and off cuts tiles. Such wasted materials are continually produced during interior construction, yet often overlooked. 0% SURPLUS seeks to highlight this hidden reality by embracing the incidental shapes of these offcuts and connecting them with minimal metal parts, transforming them into functional seating.
SO-Colored
we+
View Artist Profile
we+
The we+ research and experimentation studio, founded by Toshiya Hayashi and Hokuto Ando, explores how inquiry can shape both ideas and experiences, to generate new value and fresh perspectives.
The concept behind SO-Colored is simple: extract color from the local algae and craft furniture—a true "local color for local use” approach. Here, micro-algae collected from Midtown Garden is cultivated and blended with natural resin, which are then used as part of structural tiles, sublimating it into furniture. Cooperation: Algal Bio Co., Ltd., MagnaRecta, MOLp®︎ by Mitsui Chemicals, Inc., KARIMOKU FURNITURE INC.
drawing chair
Suzuko Yamada
View Artist Profile
Suzuko Yamada
After studying landscape design at university and working as a design staff at Sou Fujimoto Architects, she entered the graduate school of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and became independent in 2013.
Inspired by the idea of furniture as boundary markers people establish within their surroundings, this work is composed of fluid, free-form outlines. At first glance, it may not resemble conventional furniture, yet the seat, table, and flower vase are seamlessly integrated, to challenge the ways we tend perceive and inhabit a space.
Blinking Color
By employing Structural Color Inkjet Technology —as observed in iridescent bubbles and insect exoskeletons—these works cloak familiar materials in shifting hues. The result is a play of fleeting chromatic expressions that remain dynamic, shifting with the angle of light and, perhaps, even with the psychological disposition of the viewer, producing a continually evolving spectrum of appearances. Cooperation: FUJIFILM Corporation, Kataoka Byoubu, DOI FURNITURE MFG. LTD.
Kaori Akiyama
Kaori Akiyama is the founder of STUDIO BYCOLOR, a studio that promotes a holistic approach to design, redefining conventional practices and reassessing what is present before our eyes.
Rectangular panel are difficult to hang, their centers of gravity difficult to pinpoint. Yet in this work, the panel lines up perfectly on both horizontal and vertical axes. The artist has hidden weights inside the panels to calibrate this seeming paradox, creating a sense of subtle dissonance, and inviting viewers to notice similar mechanisms at play all around themselves.
Haruka Aramaki
Aramaki focuses on structure, mechanisms, and human cognition, her works explore how form, function, and experience intersect. Creations both dynamic and static, emerge from a variety of materials.
A lampshade made of persimmon-tannin dyed Japanese washi paper, soaked in wax, softly diffuses light. Its octagonal base, finished with a unique plaster blended with iron-rich red clay, expresses a rich range of gradations and subtly wavering edges. Through the interplay of stillness and motion, order and chance, the work seeks to gently stir the viewer’s senses.
MD2V
Founded by Yasuaki Yoshimoto, MD2V produces interior elements, including handmade furniture and lighting, seeking to redefine how hand-crafted objects inhabit and shape a space.
By painstakingly bundling threads spun from a spectrum of white fibers to black, and carefully varying proportions, this work expresses a range of shadows through each garment. The gradients, attuned to the space, shift with the viewer’s distance and angle, inviting a nuanced sensory experience.
Shiori Ono
Shiori Ono creates works using a diverse range of materials and techniques. Known internationally for both her textile and garment designs, blending craft and concept across multiple forms.
A wind chime which, rather than simply hanging, maintains its balance through a tensegrity structure, yet still resonates with the slightest breeze. The design symbolizes the fragile call when the equilibria of emotions, hopes and dreams which bind us individually and en masse are disturbed.
So Koizumi
SO KOIZUMI DESIGN was established in Tokyo, in 2021. The studio is active in a wide spectrum of design projects, from interiors and furniture to objects, exploring relationships between form, function, and space.
A chair is for sitting. Chair design typically instructs how and where. But this chair doesn't proscribe which direction. This work questions conventions and deviations in how we perceive this essential everyday object. Cooperation: Yamagami Mokko Co., Ltd.
Ryuichi Kozeki
A proactive product designer engaging in independent explorations of the creative landscape, and his own interior.
Clothxxg is a sustainable resource material brand produced from 100% dissolved and re-solidified former clothing. The fibers retain their original colors, like a faint memory of their origins, which retain context, and question paradigms of mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal, while reducing the need for new color processing. This work challenges our relationship with making, seeing, and using, prompting reflection on their meaning. Cooperation: Clothxxg, Mitsuru Muroshima, Tetsuya Hoshino
Yoh Komiyama
Creative Director of Clothxxg, and founder of YOH KOMIYAMA DESIGN Inc., a multidisciplinary design studio.
This lighting fixture is based on a loom. The beautiful transparency of the silk threads' plane is lost once the cloth is woven. The silk thread is dyed with natural dyes, and the lighting fixture is crafted by hand, creating a design that is the polar opposite of an industrial product. Silk thread dyeing: Suzuka Sakashita
Baku Sakashita
Trained as both designer and physician; after completing his Master's degree in Science of Design at Musashino Art University in 2016, he studied at the Ecole d'Art et de Lausanne (ECAL) in 2017 on a Swiss government scholarship, before creating his atelier.
The glass panels mounted on the wall carry a sense of weight as solid mass forms, while at the same time present remarkable lightness. When illuminated, their colorful hues evoke a gentle, shifting shimmer. Functionally a light source, the work reveals the multifaceted qualities of its material. Cooperation: BULLPEN
sasamoto natsuki
Born in Tokyo, in 1999. Graduate, Musashino Art University, 2021. Returned to Tokyo in 2023 after studying at the Toyama Institute of Glass Art.
The clock, reminiscent of a hand-drawn sketch, functions accurately, yet makes it difficult to tell the exact time. It is, in essence, a clock designed to forget time. The designer’s sensibility—always approaching creation with a “oh well” attitude—is sharply expressed in this work. Cooperation: ARAKAWA, Keita Ishida
SHOKKI
Handmade designed and manufactured of one-off ceramics with a relaxed and free-spirited "all good" attitude, embracing spontaneity and individuality in each and every creation.
The base of this storage box is a parallelogram, which the human eye may tend to ""correct"", and perceive as a square. Once we become aware of the actual shape, the recognition may surprise us. Made of Echizen lacquerware in a red lacquer base, and with a black translucent lacquer finish. Cooperation: SEKISAKA
Gen Suzuki
Gen Suzuki's studio is adjacent to his home. His practice spans everyday objects, furniture, appliances, and more, and embodies his approach of seamlessly integrating design into every aspect of daily life.
Roadside convex mirrors are an everyday fixture in Japan. This work asks what cultural, functional, and sculptural qualities might be read into them if, in the future, they were rediscovered and thought about like we think of ancient bronze mirrors.
SO TANAKA
Since graduating from Musashino Art University in 2020, Tanaka's practice has focused on the design of interior objects which question function and meaning.
The paradox of the digital and the actual: Objects that should exist only in the digital realm are materialized in 1mm-thick steel. Engaging such chimera from this other realm piques the wonder of perception and prompts a reconsideration of how we understand everyday objects.
SOHMA FURUTATE
His works often apply interdisciplinary perspectives to challenge preconceptions of causality.
Knitted from glass fiber typically used for industrial purposes with seamless knitting techniques commonly employed in clothing, then kiln-fired, these “out-of-place objects” fuse possibilities that reach beyond those usual domains.Like enigmatic OOPARTS from antiquity, they awaken new awareness through the very quality of not-knowing.
TAKT PROJECT
An independent experimental design studio based in Tokyo and Sendai using research projects to challenge existing frameworks and create another possibility.
This chandelier was informed by the vibrantly colored bouncing rubber super-balls Takeshita played with as a child, and their parabolic trajectories. Her unique design perspective is known for imbuing fresh allure into the forms and movements of everyday objects.
Saki Takeshita
Internationally active designer, Assistant professor, Musashino Art University. Her designs range from guitar effects pedals to interior goods.
Wood, one of the most familiar and approachable of materials, demands significant tools and skill to master. Using a combination of chainsaw, laser etching, and ropes and tackle binding, this vessel dynamically expresses the tension between chaotic nature and unashamed artifice.
TOSHIKI YAGISAWA
Yagisawa is an artist whose practice stirs visual perception and cognition at the boundaries of craft and digital media.
The familiar forms of roadside construction traffic cones, and concrete blocks, here reimagined in resin mesh. The gentle abstraction of these everyday shapes evokes a playful, intriguing sensation, inviting a reconsideration of the ordinary.
Ryota Nishimoto
Born in Tokyo, in 1977. Graduate, Tokyo Gakugei University. After training at a custom furniture manufacturing company, he went independent.
This table of tools is assembled and stabilized using itself: wrenches, long screws, and hex nuts. No adhesives or welding is used, allowing for its constant deformation and dis/re-assembly. The tools are the medium, the message, the typology, and the material and nominal value.
Iyo Hasegawa
An artist working in interior design and installation, redefining the value, function, and form of materials.
In contemporary interior design we see a demand for "stealth appliances": appliance exteriors meant to subterfuge as furniture. This refrigerator-forward cabinet takes a contrary approach, subtly inverting conventional wisdom, referencing and stoking our nostalgia for technology.
Yoshiki Matsuyama
Matsuyama centers his product design practice on everyday life and the beauty of nature, creating quiet, warm, and symbolic forms.
This textural structure made of glass modules depicts flow and movement, like water travelling down the river. Similar to how the river is constant in its changing, this work is a study on how we can find joy in the slightest changes in our daily lives.
May Masutani
May Masutani is a glass artist from Singapore currently based in Toyama, Japan.
Woodturner Morinaga elicits sculptural wooden vessels from atypical materials such as tree roots. To engage these roots means searching the memories of the tree's life, and explore shapes at the root of one's own memories, he says. The unexpected shapes challenge familiar notions of comfort and value.
Shoji Morinaga
Established his studio in 2007, acclaimed via solo and group shows worldwide.
A play object to be enjoyed with just two fingers, not just for children, but rather for anyone with a playful spirit who wishes to frolic more in life. Focusing one's attention on the fingertips activates the senses, and also emphasizes the importance of tactile sensations in design.
Amy Yanagawa
Graduate, 2023, Tama Art University, Department of Design, now active as a designer.
A glass plate table sits atop life-sized figures of a flock of pigeons. A table is usually a utilitarian plane, fixed, and reliable. But here it is made surreal by this sense of imminent precarity. Pigeons are docile — until startled.
Yuto Yamada
Joined Atelier Ikebuchi Pte Ltd., in Singapore in 2010, and established Yuto Yamada Design Studio in 2020.
This work sheds light on three paradoxical relationships: tangible / intangible, constant / variable, material / human. Using a precise suspension system metal, silk, and wire interact with one another, creating a complex dynamic interplay. Cooperation: ARAKAWA & CO., LTD.
Hiroto Yoshizoe
Graduate, Musashino Art University. Part-time lecturer, Kyoto University of the Arts. His many design accolades include finalist, 2022 Hublot Design Prize.
![BOX [AKATAME] | SEKISAKA photo](/jp/event/designlive/resources/img/design-live-exhibition/modal_art11.webp)
