"Hand Design"
Prototypes hand-crafted by creators and their thoughts

I want to design with my hands

When we, the members of Tezain, visited the nearby forestry area of Hanno City, Saitama Prefecture, and walked through the forest, experiencing the various expressions of wood and the thoughts of the producers, the experience led us to ask ourselves some strong questions.

"I want to design with my hands"
This project was born from the desire of our designers and planners to think for themselves, facing materials and using their hands, rather than just doing creative work in their heads and on a computer.
By touching, processing, and thinking with our hands, we are working to create new things that enrich space, society, and the environment.

At the "SOCIAL GOOD MARKET" event, organized by NOMURA GROUP, which considers the future of space from the two perspectives of sustainability and digital, and co-creates new possibilities, the group announced their activities, which involved experimenting with various processing methods to effectively use cedar and cypress in non-residential spaces, under the title "Design with Hands: Hand Design." We spoke to the four members of the Sustainable Design Unit Industrial Collaboration Team, who presented their prototypes, about the thought process that led to their development and the thoughts that went into their designs.

Related article: Hand-crafted design that creates a new relationship with wood

Structural and decorative materials | Team A

Number of hills
​ ​What I felt most was that trees really have their own personalities.
​ ​I thought it was interesting that I was alive.

Inoue
​ ​I thought everyone would have similar output,
​ ​When each participant designed while touching the wood with their hands, they came up with something completely different.

“Transparent pillar” prototype

Inoue and Kazusaka's team conducted experiments in which they stacked lumber with bark remaining from the lumber mill to make pillars, scraped the surface to give it texture, and painted it with paint mixed with metal powder.

Inoue
Wood originally has a round cross section. When you take out a square pillar or board from that, you end up with half-moon shaped scraps. I tried stacking several of these scraps to make a 10.5cm square pillar. At first I just stacked them and stuck them together, but Kazusaka said, "It's more interesting if there are gaps between the scraps," so I put spacers in between and created this "pillar that lets you see through to the other side." It can't be used as a structural material for architecture, but I think it would be interesting to use as interior design. It shows an expression that you don't get from industrial products, such as the bark, which you normally can't see.

Number of hills
Cedar can be treated to be fireproof, so it is sometimes used for interior decoration. However, the heartwood is reddish, the knots are prominent, and it has a peculiar appearance, so to be honest it is difficult to use. It inevitably has a strong "Japanese" image. So I tried various things, such as adding Western-style details to cedar boards and painting them with glue mixed with metallic tin powder. If you paint it with metallic powder, it will have a metallic luster even though it is wood, and the rawness of the wood grain will be reduced, so I think it will be easy to incorporate into a design.

(Left) Prototype with Western-style details (center) Prototype with metal powder coating (right) Tatami-style flooring prototype

Inoue
The first step in this experiment was to find new value in scrap wood that is not usually used, and to think, "Cedar and cypress are easy to use!" At first, everyone thought that their output would be similar, but when they designed while touching the wood with their hands, each person came up with a completely different output. I think that thinking with your hands is a great way to come up with design ideas.

Number of hills
What I felt most through the experiment was that wood really has its own personality. Some things are easier to process than others, and I thought it was interesting that it's alive. I thought it would be good if I could learn the characteristics of wood with my body, for example, calculate the warping properties of wood, and incorporate them into the design. It's a world that doesn't have blueprints, so I'm also interested in how to implement it.

Inoue
I think it's very important that this experiment is not just about developing materials, but also about experiencing the process of creating them. By going to the site, actually touching wood there and making things, you will come to love wood. I want to increase the number of designers who feel this way, and to use more wood in the future.

Wood x Plant Dyeing | Team B

Asai
​ ​I think that actually getting your hands dirty and designing will become even more necessary in the future.

Kasai
​ ​From the perspective of a new employee, I realized that even the same piece of wood can take on new looks depending on how it is cared for, and that there is a lot of potential.

Both are Creative Headquarters, First Design Center, Design Department 4, Inoue Room

The team of Asai, Fukabori, and Kasai conducted experiments such as dyeing wood with the natural dye indigo.
Asai, who often designs interiors for specialty stores and hotels, says that he has not often used cedar or cypress in his work until now. One of the reasons that interior designers avoid cedar and cypress is that the color and knots of the wood are noticeable, and the eye is drawn to the wood surface rather than the design. So this team decided to try an experiment: dyeing wood!

Asai
I wanted to give a new look to cedar, which is too Japanese, and in the process of trying out various things like shoe polish and crayons, the idea of indigo dyeing came about. Indigo dyed the wood the best, but I think it may have dyed it too much and killed off some of the beauty of the wood. I learned this through experimentation, so I think it was a good thing.

Kasai
I'm a new employee, but in college I was always using 3D apps and doing everything on the computer. I had very few opportunities to actually work with wood, and I didn't know much about cedar and cypress when I participated in this class. Looking at it from the perspective of a wood beginner, I thought that wood has many different expressions. It was interesting to see how the indigo dyeing we experimented with showed different expressions depending on the soaking time and how the wood's surface was processed. Even with the same wood, new expressions can be created depending on how you work with it, and I realized that there are many possibilities.

Experiment with indigo dyeing

Digging Deeper
I was surprised at the positive reactions of customers who saw the indigo-dyed wood at the exhibition. I thought I knew a little about wood, but I was a little stubborn, so I realized that it was important to listen to the opinions of people with an open mind.

Asai
I want to continue these experiments and think about how to use cedar and cypress. I knew that handwork was necessary to differentiate my designs from others, but I think that actually designing with my hands will be even more important in the future.

Wood x Catalyst | Team C

Murayama
I think that constantly upgrading your inspiration by getting your hands dirty on the spot is the shortcut to creating something new.

Ozawa
​ ​I'm sure there are some things you can't understand unless you touch it with your hands and move your hands, so I'd like to continue doing this.

Reaction of cedar and cypress with catalyst

Both are Creative Headquarters, First Design Center, Design Department 4, Inoue Room

Murayama and Ozawa's team learned about the various problems facing the production area, such as lack of demand and low lumber prices, and in order to solve these problems, they wondered if they could add new value to wood from a designer's perspective, and conducted experiments based on the theme of "wood x catalyst."

Murayama
This idea came from Ozawa-kun, and it was an experiment to see what would happen if we used a catalyst to cause a chemical reaction in the components of the wood itself. Rather than painting it with paint or dyeing it with a dye, we wanted to use the power of a catalyst to bring out the natural color of the wood.

Ozawa
At first, I saw wood that had changed color to silver-gray over time, and I wanted to achieve that. I researched why it turned gray, and found that the color changed when the oils and tannins in the wood were lost. If that's the case, I wondered if I could achieve something similar through chemical reactions. I had previously done vegetable dyeing, and one of the mechanisms involved was to react tannins with metal ions such as iron, so I gathered various catalysts to try doing the same with wood.

Murayama
I experimented to see what kind of color change would occur using common catalysts used in plant dyeing. On the first day, I tried using small chips of cedar and cypress, but the color did not change much, and I almost cried. On the second day, I tried various things with larger pieces of wood. In the end, the method that produced the most color was the one that washed with baking soda and then used the catalyst.

Ozawa
After this experiment, I learned that about 10 years ago, a veneer maker was making products using a catalyst in the same way. This time, we experimented using raw wood before drying, but I would like to try it with wood that has been properly dried. Unlike painting or dyeing on top, I think it is interesting that you can see the wood grain.

Murayama
For the exhibition "Te-zain" (Design by Hand), the exhibition panels and captions for the works are all handwritten. The "Te-zain" logo was also handwritten and designed by Ozawa.

I think it's important to be in the field. I think that constantly upgrading your inspiration by working on the ground is actually a shortcut to creating something new, even though it may seem like a roundabout way. I think the difference between humans and AI is that humans can experience the process of arriving at a certain result, but AI cannot.

Ozawa
Rather than experimenting with wood and creating works, it may have been more important for the designers to step away from their computers. There are certainly things you can't understand unless you touch and move things with your hands, so I'd like to continue doing this.

Diversity | Team D

Yoshida
​ ​I wondered if I could transform the milestones that seemed scary to me as a child into something valuable by refining them in a different way.

Umeda
​ ​Even when I hit a wall, I get really enthusiastic when I think with my hands and use the materials I have.​ ​I can reach places I can't reach just by thinking with my head.

"Flowerpot that returns to the earth" "Equilateral triangle" prototype

Lastly, we have the team of Yoshida and Umeda, who participated from a planner's perspective. At first, they thought they wouldn't be able to take part in the experiment, but it was decided that employees in professions other than design would also have the experience of MORIMACHI Door" production experience tour, used wood from the tree's end to create a prototype flowerpot that would return to the soil.

Yoshida
The concept was to modularize the grain and knots of wood and combine them to create a spatial expression. But there was actually a hidden concept. When I was a child, I used to be scared of the knots on the ceilings of inns and old houses. I wondered if I could transform those scary knots into something more valuable by processing them into a different shape. In addition to the shape, I also tried finishing the surface with sandpaper of various grits and staining it with coffee, black tea, green tea, and red wine.

Umeda
When I thought about greening the city, I thought it would be nice to have something that could be used to plant trees using local Nishikawa wood. I wanted to make something using the ears, which have a plant-like feel. A tree has a thick base and a thin top, so if you look closely, it is trapezoidal. I took advantage of that shape and made it so that even a simple structure of drilling holes in the edges and tying them with string can function as a flowerpot. It is a flowerpot that is good for the health of plants because it has good ventilation and will return to soil over time.

(Left and center) Triangular prototype (right) "Flowerpot that returns to the earth" prototype

Yoshida
The small triangles were machined by someone at a woodworking studio, and I cut the larger ones myself using a saw. I was surprised to find that I couldn't use carpentry tools very well as an adult, even though I often used them as a child. It made me think again about the effort and man-hours that go into making things.

Umeda
It's really fun to make things with your hands. Even if you start with an image in mind, you may hit a wall because the materials are different from what you expected, but when you solve the problem with an idea that makes use of the materials you came up with by hand, it really gets you excited. You can go places you can't reach just by thinking with your head.
By "hand designing," we can get to know the thoughts of people in the forestry and lumber industries who know forests and trees well, borrow their wisdom and power, and come up with ideas by being in the local area and using our hands. I think that this will naturally lead to sustainable manufacturing that makes use of what is available there. I hope that this will lead to the creation of new products and services for local people.

Text: Sho Iwasaki