Despite the grey, threatening typhoon skies (which forced one of the main sites to close for a day), Tokyo's largest design event went ahead with the bright, positive disposition we've come to expect from this fair. Composed of two organizations, Tokyo Designers Week and DesignTide Tokyo, each with their own main sites, they also incorporate over 100 satellite shows where artists, designers and architects display their work in shops, galleries and cafés across this vast, buzzing city.
Designer Gwenael Nicolas of Japanese design studio Curiosity gave Tokyo Designers Week's main event, Tent, the theme of 'Environment' and asked designers to tackle the subject both in a broad sense with issues such as global warming but also in a more personal way looking at how it concerns our own mind and body. Besides individual designers experimenting with recycling, the events showed advanced research technologies led by large Japanese companies, and tried to convince train-loving Tokyoites to get on bicycles.
As in previous years, the Container exhibition (where designers are given a shipping cargo container each in which to create an interactive display using elements like light, imagery, sound and aroma) continued to mesmerize the crowds, as did the Student show, which was themed: 'Red List: Endagnered Species'.
Over at DesignTide Tokyo's main site at the Tokyo Midtown Hall, the interior had been designed by architect Ryuji Nakamura, while the theme was 'Bare Room'.
Titled 'Bare Room', the design emphasises the enormity of this column-free venue
The 7m-high structures invite visitors to look up to the ceiling, reminding them how huge the hall that they are in really is
Kouichi Okamoto of Kyouei Design showcases his new massive handmade chair cut from steel bars
In creating his chair, Okamoto wanted to show it was still possible for an entire design and production process to be done by one person
Yuko & Noriko Nakayama's 'Floating Pattern Carpet' in collaboration with Antron Carpet design
The two sisters wanted to explore what happens when a pattern is separated from a carpet and then placed on the wall, triggering a new way of seeing the space
Architect Hideyuki Nakayama's display 'A Room in the Glass Globe' consists of two glass doorknobs stuck onto a white door
Reminiscent of a trapped world in a snow dome, the doorknob reveals a room within it upon closer inspection
Textile designer Hiroko Takahashi applied her signature pattern of circles and straight lines onto Arita ware
By slightly changing the position of the pattern on each plate, Takahashi made this mass-produced product look as if it had been handmade
Hiroko Takahashi's art installation 'On Purpose' in her new gallery
Work from the kimono-making students of Kawashima Textile school in Kyoto
Tokyo-based Nendo designed one of the 100 original and vintage piggy banks on show in Shinjuku's Isetan department store. 'Piggy Bank Collection' looks to brings back that nostalgic enjoyable feeling of putting coins in a piggy bank
Design collaborative Nakadai bring out the hidden potential of industrial waste in an unexpected and beautiful way
This pavilion is made from a variety of materials from the Nakadai's 'Material Data Bank', such as LAN cable waste turned into sheets
Textile designer Yoko Ando of Nuno contributed to the pavilion's ceiling with LAN cable waste stuck between membranes
Makoto Orisaki worked on a large sheet of cardboard for 15 hours to make the 'Origami Magic Ball'
The 'Origami Magic Ball' up close, which undulates and billows out depending on how it is pressed
Work from the The 'Jalapagos' exhibition, a presentation by Japanese contemporary artists within the main venue of Tokyo Designers Week
Designer Nosigner collaborated with Japanese artisans from Izumi and produced the magnetic 'gravity pearls'
The white water pearls cluster like bubbles, and can also be used as jewellery
Embroidery artist Yumiko Arimoto's piece, titled 'Montblanc Seen From Ham'
The piece, which at first view appears to be an embroidered piece of ham, allows the user to spot the landscape of Mont Blanc if seen from a different visual perspective
An exhibition at Hotel Claska, where six Japanese designers show what can be done with the innovative 'or-ita' cutter
Close up of the the 'or-ita' cutter, which allows the user to easily make creases on cheap corrugated cardboard and fold it as desired
Naoki Terada made a series of nine architectural model-making postcards with a comical twist
The latest series' theme is that of an orchestra
Nosigner and his 'Mirror of Eclipse'
The mirror is part of a display on John Warwicker of Tomato's artwork in the Taro Horiuchi shop
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Fritz Hansen Tokyo HQ opens in Kengo Kuma-designed buildingFritz Hansen unveils a new Tokyo HQ, in a building originally designed by Kengo Kuma in 1991. In a new film created to mark the opening, the architect shares his creative vision and his views on both Scandinavian and Japanese design
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Tokyo Designers Week 2013: The highs and lows
