Claesson Koivisto Rune × Woodwork / sasimonokagu takahashi [Story2] Ideas in three dimensions

Returning to Stockholm after an insightful first encounter with Yuji Takahashi, Ola Rune began to translate their ideas for the collection into a furniture set comprising a table, bench and stool. His initial sketches drew inspiration from the craftsman’s tools, techniques and philosophy, and were followed by a series of scale models that explored the dialogue between the room and the furniture.

Building on the scale of the room, the table and bench took shape quite naturally, yet deciding on the ideal proportions for the stool proved a much harder challenge to navigate. When a range of conventional stool sizes proved incompatible with the other pieces, Rune looked to Japanese bathing culture, where he found low wooden stools bearing the ideal proportions for his design. 

The tools commonly used in daily life provided another design reference in the form of a shamoji (rice paddle). While examining the tableware and other products that Takahashi has crafted for Yoshika Yokota, owner of gallery and restaurant Kantsukyo, Rune came across a simple wooden shamoji, inspired by the traditional crafts of Miyajima, that bore a striking resemblance to a Swedish baking tool. The tool’s convex curves and smooth transitions inspired his furniture designs. “The baking tool has such a strong presence. It has mass, even though it’s quite thin,” explains Rune. “The table will be the same. A lot of designs try to make thin and elegant shapes, but this will be contradictory: it will look thin but also have mass.”

“We have made a design that joins our way of thinking and Japanese traditional craftsmanship and aesthetics,” says Rune. Consisting of furniture elements that can function in multiple arrangements and independently, the table set will be made from Hiroshima chestnut, a locally sourced material that Takahashi aims to promote through his furniture. A natural urushi-based coating will be used to provide protection while retaining the wood’s natural texture.

Highlighting the furniture’s unique forms are delicate joints, barely six millimetres in width, which protrude through the surfaces and are designed to create the impression of loosely stacked, yet firmly connected elements. “When guests meet around this table we’d like to invite them to talk about the details that are clearly visible on the top surface of the three pieces. Without these joints, we thought the table missed something ― it was just another curved surface,” says Rune. 

In order to realise the designer’s vision for a seemingly impossible joint, Takahashi revisited the work of his former master before developing a prototype in the form of a stool. Overcoming the challenges presented by the myriad curves, tapers and convex surfaces, he was able to design internal sections that provided the delicate joint with robust functionality.   

“Takahashi-san has made our ideas into three dimensional objects, without any straight angle or plane, just like our own human bodies,” says Rune. 

>>Continued in Story 3

Claesson Koivisto Rune

Claesson Koivisto Rune is a Swedish architectural partnership, founded in Stockholm, in 1995, by Mårten Claesson, Eero Koivisto and Ola Rune. It started as an architectural firm, but has since become an internationally-acclaimed, multi-disciplinary office with an equal emphasis on both architecture and design. Project categories include buildings, hotels, homes, shops, offices, exhibitions, kitchens, sanitary ware, tableware, glassware, furniture, textiles, tiles, lighting, electronics, candy and even a trophy (the Swedish TV-prize Kristallen).

www.claessonkoivistorune.se

sasimonokagu takahashi

SASIMONOKAGU-TAKAHASHI is furniture atelier founded in Kumano,Hiroshima in 2010 by joiner Yuji Takahashi. They can conclude whole process of making furniture  by themselves from design to sales. In those days they mainly craft furniture which is privately ordered through Takahashi. Besides furnitures, he owns studio “tetoma” where he can open some exhibitions relates their lifestyle, chatting space and the other events. 

www.sasimonokagu-takahashi.com