Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic StraftTamaki Ishii and Kazuma Yamagami (both\u00a026) established their Tokyo-based studio after leaving university where they studied\u00a0industrial design. Their graduation project changed the duo\u2019s focus: they began\u00a0to explore rice straw, a sustainable byproduct of rice, which they turn into chairs, tapestries and clothing.Their chairs came first: \u201cI like to imagine a life where straw is part of a space, and the\u00a0presence of a chair brings energy to its surroundings,\u201d says Ishii. He is careful to \u201cretain the roughness of natural materials\u201d. One of the studio\u2019s designs is a straw bench that appears unfinished on one side \u2013 the\u00a0design resembles the tip of a broom or\u00a0an agricultural bundle.The pair also create clothing, produced in a similar way to knitwear. \u201cThe straw is too stiff to use knitting needles, so I use my\u00a0hands and form straw loops with my fingers,\u201d Ishii explains. Although there is much craft involved, Ishii prefers to see his\u00a0work \u201cas designing \u2013 we add value to the\u00a0material through the design process\u201d.\u00a0Ishii says that \u201cold-new design\u201d, an approach that may be uniquely Japanese, sees crafts that have been handed down for centuries embraced in contemporary life. The technique Straft employs, for example, was\u00a0used to make traditional straw mino garments, and later everyday items such as\u00a0carpet, slippers and forms of shelter. The\u00a0duo have conducted extensive research of\u00a0collections at the Japan Open Air Folk House Museum in Kawasaki to work out how to adapt the technique to modern use. \u201cLifestyles have changed, but we wanted to find something that fits with contemporary daily life, and this material is not only practical but beautiful,\u201d says Ishii. Inspired by this natural beauty, the duo have created accessories showcasing rice straw as a decorative finish. \u201cWe make pieces imagining what people in the old days would do with it today.\u201d @straft__Koji YamamotoDesigner-craftsman Yamamoto creates objects that filter Japan\u2019s traditional culture through a contemporary lens. The 46-year-old worked with furniture brands for more than 20 years before leaving the\u00a0corporate world in 2024 to explore his creative projects full-time. His Tokyo-based brand How To Wrap creates designs based on kamon-ori: the art of folding colour paper into flower patterns. The works are created by stacking sheets of paper, shifting them one by one and folding them towards the centre. Yamamoto works on the pieces at home in Tokyo and at a second house in Nagano Prefecture.The designs can never be machine made, only by hand\u201cThere is a Bauhaus-like graphic-ness to\u00a0the designs, but they can never be machine-made, they are produced only by\u00a0hand,\u201d he\u00a0says of the art, which he learnt\u00a0from an illustrated book written by\u00a0Mitsuhiro Uchiyama. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what\u00a0shape they will take when folding. I\u2019m\u00a0often\u00a0so focused on the paper and my\u00a0hands that I forget to breathe.\u201d\u00a0From kamon-ori, Yamamoto has since extended his skills to wrapping stones in strings, a riff on the Japanese custom of placing the objects on the ground to mark out areas where one should not tread (typically around tea gardens or sacred spaces). \u201cThe process of hand-making gives the pieces meaning, it\u2019s a meditative practice,\u201d he explains. In this way, his work also subtly subverts the original intention of the stone, as they are made to take inside a space. @howtowrap_Shinya YamamotoYamamoto first caught international attention\u00a0when, in 2023, he offered a collection of woven paper and leather vases in\u00a0a collaboration with the Parisian apparel brand\u00a0Pol\u00e8ne. The vases, resembling an upside-down hat with a large rim, can be bent\u00a0like a collar to create a range of different shapes. \u201cI wanted there to be an interaction between people and interior design, not only through craftsmanship but by giving those using the piece the possibility of adding their own touches to it,\u201d says the 46-year-old designer, who was previously the creative director of Japanese home furnishing label Mobje (an offshoot of the hat-maker Fujii Hat, which has a 70-year history), and for whom the project was an opportunity to transform an accessory that\u2019s largely disappearing from\u00a0use\u00a0in Japan as formal dress wear into\u00a0an object for the home.I don\u2019t make furniture for the sake of beautyWood, however, is Yamamoto\u2019s preferred medium. To this end, the designer\u00a0has opened a workshop in Hida\u00a0Takayama \u2013 an area known for its\u00a0woodworkers, and where furniture techniques are highly developed \u2013 to produce pieces using small offcuts from Japanese hardwoods such as beech and zelkova. \u201cThis type of wood is not often used for furniture because it is prone to twisting and distortion, but is an important part of Japan\u2019s forestry,\u201d says Yamamoto. \u201cI\u00a0want to utilise its characteristics through design and highly skilled cabinetry.\u201d shinyayamamoto.jpTakashi KitaKita, 46, established the furniture design-maker Kitaworks in 2009. The studio builds on the skills and techniques developed by\u00a0the welding factory founded by his father\u00a0Seishi Kita in Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture, where he worked after graduating from high school.His furniture melds metal \u2013 iron, stainless steel, copper and brass \u2013 which is applied using the techniques he learnt while working in the industry. His three-legged Arch chair exemplifies this approach: the pared-down design is based on the pursuit of functionality, with three legs, a perforated plate seat and backrest that,\u00a0in turn, is gently\u00a0curved to create the appearance of a crafted element. \u201cI\u00a0search for the essence of\u00a0a thing, and combine it\u00a0with a rationality that is born out of necessity,\u201d says Kita. His brass cabinet bears this out. Its simple form conceals an intricate locking system. When the handle is turned, the bar moves up and\u00a0down to lock the door. \u201cI don\u2019t make furniture for the sake of beauty, the beauty is\u00a0revealed as a result of its function.\u201d kita-works.comYuri HimuroTokyo-based textile designer Himuro explores connectivity through her work. \u201cI\u00a0search for ways people can interact with my\u00a0textiles \u2013 and not just by looking and appreciating them,\u201d says the 36-year-old. Himuro uses a special weaving technique that she developed herself to create the Snip Snap series of textiles (which can be used as wall hangings or cushion covers), producing a pattern resembling, for instance, a blue sky or green lawn. This\u00a0panoramic view recalls Japanese paintings of the 17th century. The long yarns used on the surface of the textiles can be cut with scissors, allowing the person who owns the piece to change the design by trimming it. No skills are required: children and adults are encouraged to be creative.\u00a0I search for ways for people to interact with my textilesHimuro came up with the idea for Snip Snap in 2012 after coming across a jacquard machine capable of complex programming as an exchange student at Aalto University in Finland. The collection led to a collaboration with contemporary rug specialist CC-Tapis, followed by another with fashion house Loewe, where she created a textile for the brand that revealed the Loewe logo when cut.The concept is not easy to imitate. \u201cDesigning a weaving draft for a pattern that appears when you cut the yarns involves quite complex engineering,\u201d says Himuro. \u201cI spend many hours working out the draft myself.\u201d She continues to innovate. Her new Colorwave blanket is thermo-treated to make the yarns shrink. In turn, the blanket appears different depending on the\u00a0direction and angle you look at it. It will\u00a0be exhibited at 3 Days of Design in\u00a0Copenhagen in June.\u00a0h-m-r.netTakamasa NakamuraJapanese artisan-designer Nakamura creates new furniture from vintage pieces, which he sources at local auctions. He works alone in the countryside of Saitama, but has found a growing audience of international followers through social media, with whom he shares his skills. Many of his finds date back to the 1930s: wooden chests of drawers, cabinets and\u00a0tables that bear the marks of use. \u201cObserving the layers of time on each piece, I make adjustments to bring the wood back to its original state,\u201d he explains. Nakamura has a background in furniture restoration; he was formerly employed at a\u00a0workshop in Ibaraki Prefecture. There, if\u00a0an old piece was missing wood elements, he would have to imagine how they might have looked and fabricate them back to life. \u201cEach missing part is different. You can\u2019t buy these at a hardware store.\u201dBorn in 1991, Nakamura studied design\u00a0at university in Saitama Prefecture, where the students were encouraged to use\u00a0computers and digital devices as tools\u00a0to create homogeneous designs that could be\u00a0easily reproduced. \u201cAt the time, I\u00a0believed that this was the right way to design, but then found myself captivated by\u00a0the old wooden houses of Japan,\u201d Nakamura recalls. These encounters became the motivation behind his current practice. \u201cThe lines of those houses, made by traditional carpenters adapting to the organic contours of wood, were so different from anything I would have designed as a\u00a0student. My shell was broken.\u201dThat epiphany led him to explore vintage furniture: \u201cMy approach is to remove the patina that is layered over time,\u00a0while preserving the age inherent in\u00a0the wood,\u201d explains Nakamura. \u201cThe\u00a0work is done with the intention of restoring\u00a0the wood\u2019s natural energy.\u201d\u00a0incarnation-tn.jp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic StraftTamaki Ishii and Kazuma Yamagami (both\u00a026) established their Tokyo-based studio after leaving university where they studied\u00a0industrial design. Their graduation project changed the duo\u2019s focus: they began\u00a0to explore rice straw, a sustainable byproduct of rice, which they turn into chairs, tapestries and clothing.Their chairs came<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":273018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-273017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273019,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273017\/revisions\/273019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}