Tokyo Designer's Week '09

Last week the 24th annual Tokyo Designers Week took place in Japan. Highlight exhibitions included 100% Design Tokyo, Container Exhibition, and the Student Exhibition, which were all held at the main Venue in Jinu Gaien. In addition, more than 1000 corporations, schools, embassies, designers and shops from Japan and around the world showcased new works in stores and galleries all over the city.

The theme of this year Designers Week was ‘Love Green’, which exhibitors were allowed to interpret however they liked.  One such interpretation was ‘The Idea of a Tree’ designed and invented by Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler of the Austrian design collective Spot On Wien. This solar-powered machine makes furniture using nothing but energy from the sun’s rays and threads, which are pulled through a basin of colored dyes and glue and then wrapped around a sun-powered, rotating plastic mold to give the piece its shape. Lighter Colors and Larger pieces indicate long days with stronger, intenser sunshine.

For more highlights and information about this year’s Tokyo Designers Week please visit www.design-channel.jp

'The Idea of a Tree' by Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler

'The Idea of a Tree' by Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler, 2009