Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This issue is governed, very simply, by\u00a0the influence of east Asian design. It\u2019s\u00a0a big topic, a vast area from which thousands of crafts and skill sets have evolved. To try to encapsulate an entire continent in a single design language would be too bold a goal; but if there is a single theme that unites the stories featured here, it is the celebration of skills and cultures that are being manipulated, modernised and made more relevant in the design vernacular of now.In Kurume, the architect Toru Shimokawa works from\u00a0a\u00a0study next to the building that he was born in. Except it actually isn\u2019t. It\u2019s one of the quirks of Japanese architectural practice that many students start\u00a0their careers by\u00a0rebuilding family houses \u2013 until quite\u00a0recently it was considered normal to knock down a\u00a0property after a period of around 20 to 30 years. Shimokawa\u2019s formative project was another house, the one his parents eventually moved into \u2013 he built in its place a great concrete edifice. With the home he created in 2015, however, he was more sensitive to\u00a0classic tropes of Japanese design. And then ambushed them. Leo Lewis flew to Kyushu to meet Shimokawa and visit other projects that he has built via his\u00a0architectural firm. At 42, Shimokawa remains a maverick in the great tradition of Japanese architecture, a\u00a0self-taught but unlikely pioneer.\u00a0Felix Conran, grandson of Sir\u00a0Terence, is also trying to express\u00a0a\u00a0new mode of living via traditional design. Conran arrived in Higashiyoshino, Nara, with his partner while on a road trip in 2023. He found a forest village in which there were a number of old abandoned houses and\u00a0has since made it his purpose to resurrect them under his new business Ha Partners \u2013 the\u00a0first of these is now his\u00a0home. He takes us on a tour of\u00a0the\u00a0building nestled in\u00a0the wooded surrounds. There\u2019s something quite\u00a0magical about his sylvan idyll \u2013 all\u00a0achieved with the\u00a0help of\u00a0a community of senior neighbours who have provided invaluable insight and skills.These gorgeous projects make me confident that the sento will rise againThe sento (public bathhouse) was once the centre of Japanese community, a major feature of urban life. But social change \u2013 and the advent of bathrooms in most modern apartments \u2013 has seen their numbers plummet, from almost 18,000 in the 1960s to only around 2,000 across Japan today. A wave of next-gen designers has, however, determined not to let the sento disappear and, as Clara Baldock discovers, the baths have become the focus of a programme aimed at invigorating the custom once again. Sento come with their own artistic signatures and artisanal customs \u2013 a great many of which are similarly in dire need of support. Yet the gorgeous projects featured here make me confident that the sento will rise again.In Seoul, Jay Lim, the founder of South Korean lifestyle brand Say Touch\u00e9, explains why his native home is enjoying a \u201cgolden era\u201d of design. He thinks the success of\u00a0Korea in the design world is due to a young population who are, respectfully, forging new mores and social codes. \u201cThis\u00a0generation is good at using media and machines, new-generation stuff, but our parents were very classic,\u201d he tells Marion Willingham. \u201cWe\u2019re not traditional Korean kids but we\u2019ve still got the same mindset.\u201d His generation is drawing on this hybrid new\/trad culture to\u00a0explore \u201chouse parties\u201d \u2013 hitherto not a thing in the country according to Jay Lim \u2013 and other radical ideas.\u00a0And then we look to the future. Matt Vella writes about Hyundai, and in particular Lee Sang-yup, the lead of the car manufacturer\u2019s Global Design Center, who has helped transform it into \u201cthe most progressive design organisation in the industry\u201d. Rhodri Marsden, meanwhile, explores the business of robotics to examine what we really want from our android pals. Are they simply here to serve us, automaton butlers who fulfil basic menial tasks? Or is our interest indicative of the need for a\u00a0more emotional requirement \u2013 a surrogate pet, a sexual partner or, in these lonely times, a friend? What is interesting about robots is, despite our better intelligence, they inevitably arouse in us some kind of sentimental trigger. Perhaps it\u2019s\u00a0not the robots we need to fear in the future, but the humans who think them real.\u00a0@jellison22<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This issue is governed, very simply, by\u00a0the influence of east Asian design. It\u2019s\u00a0a big topic, a vast area from which thousands of crafts and skill sets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":273228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-273227","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\/273227","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=273227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273229,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273227\/revisions\/273229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}