Sato’s factory: Nendo makes everyday items into sculptural objects

Milan – Oki Sato, the founder of Japanese studio Nendo, created a serene, clean installation that reflects his company’s polished aesthetic and attention to detail at the Milan Design Week.

In a cobbled stone courtyard, and on the floor throughout a white cube-shaped room, Sato had laid out 5,500 miniature chairs ‘planted’ and ‘grown’ in 1,100 miniature pots. The concept proposes to show Nendo’s method.

‘We design everything in the same way,’ Sato told LS:N Global. ‘From a simple set of sketches, we design from stories rather from materials or forms or shapes.’

Visitors see those stories made real, and life-size, in the white cube room. As well as some previous works, such as the magical, thin ‘cord-chair’ made of steel clad in wood, ‘like the way a pencil is made’ according to Sato, there are new works. All reflect the brand’s trademark ability: to turn everyday items into sculptural items through attention to detail and a ruthlessly spare, beautifully clean aesthetic.

‘Peel’ is a series of cute ceramic cups. On each, a bit of the rim has peeled away, ideal to wrap the tea bag’s string around. ‘Dress-up’ is a family of three flower vases, each featuring a cut-away collar, as appropriate for ‘father’, ‘mother’ and ‘child’. And ‘shoe-horn’ is a sculpturally stunning rendering of an everyday item.

‘Our studio is eight people, we have 100 projects on the go at the moment,’ Sato told LS:N Global, smiling beatifically.

This sense of calmness, borne out again and again in Nendo’s beautiful objects, reflects a consumer need to reconnect with simple objects which they connect with emotionally – as seen in the macrotrend Leanomics and expressed in the Emotional Home aesthetic trend.