When architectural designer Motomi Morii, 38, thinks of her childhood, she thinks of her grandparents' old house, filled with the smell of lumber.
"The best memories for me as a child come from that house," she says. "It was an old house. That part of my family ran a lumber company, so the house always smelled of hinoki (Japanese cypress) wood. In the backyard, there were fig trees and a stream. All the neighbors were friends, and we had festivities and local fireworks."
These trips to her grandparents' house in Yoshino, Nara Prefecture, are the basis of Morii's interest in craft and design, as well as her understanding of the importance of history and culture in design. She says that her family "were old-fashioned people, so they made everything by hand. I was attracted to the practicality and aesthetics of what they made."