50 chairs, a round office and a clock
Articles
17.02.05
Oki Sato founded Nendo in Tokyo in 2002. Today it is one of the most reputed conceptual design studios worldwide which talks about complex things using simple shapes and lines. We sussed out what Nendo created in 2016.
ROLLING WORKSPACE
Once upon a time, there was a square white table in some office… It is still there, but Nendo decided to rewrite a story about typical office interiors and create an environment that boosts creativity.
The new desk became circular-shaped and mobile. According to the Japanese studio, you can bring it to a conference room for brainstorming or even take it along with you for a lunch. In addition, these desks can also be used as portable office space dividers.
The round office concept was presented at the Orgatec 2016 furniture and equipment exhibition in Cologne.
SLICE OF TIME
Futuristic installation for the brand Panerai. Designers created an ultramodern clockmaker shop where you can see every step of production. Visitors could feel the passage of minutes, hours and weeks as a physical object, not as an abstract aspect of daily life.
The name of the project materialized in the literal sense. Using an extrusion moulding process, there was produced a 16-meter plastic tube to cut off body clocks. Every visitor received a unique clock as a gift. The size of each clock was determined according to the visitor’s age by converting it into millimetres.
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A NEW CLOCK WAS MADE EVERY FIVE MINUTES
MANGA CHAIRS
50 chairs of polished steel inspired by the Japanese manga comics. They illustrate the emotions, actions, and language of manga characters. One chair symbolizes joy, another one – inspiration, yet one – a jump, and so on up to fifty.
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CARICATURAL CHAIRS UNDERGONE VARIOUS DISTORTIONS
With manga tropes in their minds, Nendo designers avoided direct physical similarities to comics in terms of textures, colours or shapes. The allusions are very subtle. For example, mirrored surfaces reflect ambient objects the same as manga comics reflect reality.