Hand

  • table & benches
  • Sasimonukagu Takahashi
  • 2019

The HAND wooden furniture collection is the result of a unique collaboration with expert Japanese carpenter Yuji Takahashi.

Initiated as a Japanese craftsperson – international designer collaboration to encourage innovate use their various crafts. The final design pushed Takahashi and his carpentry team further technically as the cross-sections of each of the component parts are made so that they become progressively thinner towards their outer edges, resulting in an edge thickness of only a few millimetres.

This thinning of parts begins at the very centre of each part, meaning that all the furniture pieces lack any true, flat surfaces. All the surfaces are slightly convex. Even the tabletop’s upper surface has a very subtle camber, a quality not easily observed but more obviously felt through touch.

Furthermore, these convex surfaces meet along the outer edge of each component which in itself forms perimeter shape from a series of curves, devoid of straight lines. The sum of these choices presents a considerable challenge for hand tool production. However, the completed collection of furniture retains a particular tactility that is often lost in larger series production.

The collection was presented for the first time at Tokyo Craft Room, at Hamacho Hotel, during DesignArt Tokyo 2019.