Peep is an evolution in lighting and partition design that allows the visualization of optical phenomena that cannot ordinarily be seen.

Spectroscopy and moire are generated by viewing light and landscapes through high definition mesh and its movement.

For the material, we use high-definition mesh from NBC Meshtec Inc., which is a high-density weave of monofilament fibers with a diameter of 24μ-33μ. With a focus on the optical characteristics of mesh that is normally used for things such as medical filters or silkscreen printing plates, we are exploring new possibilities.

By capturing the ability of lighting to act as a device for peeping, and by using partition as a device that alters the scenery beyond, we are attempting to utilize mesh to expand the value of conventional products.

Peep was exhibited in Superstudio during Milan Design Week 2018.
(MATERIAL DESIGN EXHIBITION “TOKYO MATERIAL BYPASS”)

we+ is a contemporary design studio established in 2013 by Toshiya Hayashi and Hokuto Ando based in Tokyo. Toshiya graduated from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and Hokuto graduated from Central Saint Martins in London. They develop their experimental approach to products, installations and graphics, by combining unconventional materials and technology to shift perspectives. Their works are represented by Gallery S. Bensimon in Paris and Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan. They also have been commissioned by a variety of partners including SONY, Marimekko, Issey Miyake and Mori Art Museum.

Team credits

Photography by Masayuki Hayashi
Artists HOKUTO ANDO & TOSHIYA HAYASHI / we+

Credits
# Lighting H85 L8.8 W8.8 [cm] High definition mesh, LED, Acrylic plastic, Solid surface
# Partition H90.7 / L9.8 / W80 [cm] High definition mesh, Acrylic plastic, Solid surface, Stepper motor

The steel wires have a diameter of 1.2 mm and a length of 15 mm. The orientation, density and overlapping of the steel wires are controlled by magnetic force and interact with each other. Also, since there is no single pattern, a unique and complex shape is created.

Rather than simply designing shapes, we are utilizing magnetic force to design a process that creates shapes.

Swarm was exhibited in Spazio Rossana Orlandi during Milan Design Week 2018.

we+ is a contemporary design studio established in 2013 by Toshiya Hayashi and Hokuto Ando based in Tokyo. Toshiya graduated from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and Hokuto graduated from Central Saint Martins in London. They develop their experimental approach to products, installations and graphics, by combining unconventional materials and technology to shift perspectives. Their works are represented by Gallery S. Bensimon in Paris and Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan. They also have been commissioned by a variety of partners including SONY, Marimekko, Issey Miyake and Mori Art Museum.

Team credits

Photography by Masayuki Hayashi
Artists HOKUTO ANDO & TOSHIYA HAYASHI / we+

Credits
# Chair: H75 L63 W60 SH38.5 [cm] Steel, Steel wire, Magnet
# Vase: H30 L12 W12 / H15 L2.5 W15 / H8 L8 W8 / H21 L2 W2 [cm] Steel, Steel wire, Magnet

Toshiya Hayashi and Hokuto Ando are the experimental designers behind we+, a contemporary design studio based in Tokyo and represented by Gallery S. Bensimon in Paris. They combine unconventional materials with new technology to shift traditional approaches to products, installations and graphics within the design industry. We’d like to introduce their latest project, Drought, which they exhibited earlier this year at Gallery Rossana Orlandi during Milan Design Week. At first glance, Drought is a chair with a minimalistic, linear frame. But take a closer look and you can see that it has a totally unexpected texture.

The unique shapes that pepper the chair’s surface tell a story about time. Hayashi and Ando challenged themselves to embody the intangible process of time in a static object, a project that they framed around something we use every day: a chair. By using a dehydration process that occurs naturally over time, Hayashi, Ando and the rest of we+ studio produced Drought, a bronze chair with a porous textural quality similar to volcanic rock.

The chair’s original mould was made out of translucent white wax and marble-sized spheres of extremely absorbent resin. As the mould dried over time, the resin shrank down to a tenth of its original size and slipped out from the wax, leaving behind countless holes and hollows throughout the entire form. By then casting the final version in bronze, Hayashi and Ando managed to maintain the integrity of a conventional chair, despite the perforations left behind by the dehydration process.

As is often the case, time’s effect on Drought was thoroughly transformational. The chair looks dry and brittle, with a texture reminiscent of the air pockets in volcanic rock left over time by lava as it cools. Concepts of strength and fragility come to mind when viewing the contrast of the chair’s sturdy bronze structure and the perforations that appear to have eaten away its linear shape. Each intricate recession in its surface represents an absence; these hollows are small parts of the chair that has disappeared. We are left with a feeling associated with droughts, a longing for the small pieces of the chair that are missing – the pieces that could have made it whole. As a result, Hayashi and Ando’s unique project confronts viewers with a real example of time’s unexpected processes.

Credits

Words by Eimi Tagore-Erwin

Photographs by Masayuki Hayashi