The Gentleman Magazine Issue 9 | June 2018 | Page 70

Each year, designers are challenged to produce ideas which
capture a central theme, linked to Lexus’s own design principles.
An international panel of design expert judges selects 12
finalists from among hundreds of entries from around the
world. The finalists’ work is shown as part of Lexus’s presence
at the annual Milan Design Week. From this group, four
submissions are given financial help and the support of leading
design professionals as mentors to develop their concepts to
prototype stage. An ultimate Grand Prix winner is then chosen
from this quartet.
Among the works on display is Agar Plasticity, the Grand Prix
winner in 2016, created by AMAM, a design group formed
by Kosuke Araki, Noriaki Maetani and Akira Muraoka.
Their product explores how agar, a substance obtained from
marine algae, can treated to make natural and environmentally
friendly packaging materials that can be used as alternatives to
oil-based plastics.
Instamp is a series of silicon stamps representing the western
A to Z alphabet in a simple typeface. Instead of producing a
uniform image, the stamps create a different effect depending
on the position, pressure and stress applied. The resulting effect
is similar to the brushwork used in east Asian calligraphy.
Created by Japanese designer Yuzo Azu, Instamp was a finalist
in the 2015 Lexus Design Award.
The wide range of inspiration among the award’s thousands of
entries is witnessed in Dada, a toy comprising blocks, pegs and
bands made from natural products, which children can use
to explore their creative imagination. Designed by Myungsik
Jang from Korea, Dada was a finalist in the 2016 Lexus Design
Award.
Kuniko Maeda (2017 Lexus Design Award finalist), takes
disposable paper and upcycles it to create intricately patterned
3D structures, coating and cutting the material to give it a
completely new appearance. The process for this Landscape
of Paper transforms what would be waste for recycling into a
new material combining both traditional craft techniques and
digital technology.
Origami Porcelain, developed by Hitomi Igarashi for the 2013
award, is created using a new casting technique with paper,
allowing for thinner ceramic pieces and more free-form shapes
to be achieved.
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The World Clock (2012, Masafumi Ishikawa and Hitomi
Ishikawa, USA) is a simple concept that tells you the time in
12 different world cities. The frame is a dodecagon, with each
side representing a different location. As you rotate the clock,
the single hour hand remains in place, so the local time can be
seen at-a-glance.
Iris lights
The cluster of translucent lights suspended above the lounge’s
bar area comprises a series of Iris crystal ball lamps, created
by Sebastian Scherer and featured in the 2014 Lexus Design
Award. Scherer, from Berlin, drew his inspiration from children
blowing soap bubbles, and sought to capture the intriguing
qualities of these shimmering, floating spheres.
Two years after starting his development work, he made contact
with a German company that specialises in dichroic colour
coating of glass. They were given the challenge of applying their
techniques to a spherical form to create something completely
new.
The result is the Iris lamp. Each globe is made from handblown
crystal, which is dipped in an alcohol solution before being
fired. The resulting finish shimmers in a different colour from
every angle. An OLED provides the light source and fixture for
each lamp, its extremely thin framework ensuring the design is
not compromised.
Inaho Lights
The floor-standing light installation in the centre of the lounge
is by Hideki Yoshimoto and Yoshinaka Ono of Japan’s Tangent
Studios and was a leading finalist in the 2013 Lexus Design
Award. Called Inaho, these freestanding lamps have bulbs
shaped like ears of rice (inaho in Japanese).
Mirroring the swaying movement of rice plants, the lights
glow with a golden light and lean towards people a s they
approach. The stems contain artificial muscle fibres controlled
by electricity. As you draw near to the light, sensors trigger
a micro-controller which causes the muscle fibres to shrink
slightly with a certain rhythm, creating the swaying effect. As
the stems are made of an elastic carbon fibre tube, these small
stimuli can be amplified into a dramatic motion.
, Security in Motion”