As we ease into 2023, On: Design looks at a few popular product releases that anticipate a bright future for industrial design — with a particular focus on emotional wellness, environmental awareness and social responsibility.
Breathe easy
When robotic startup Yukai Engineering’s therapeutic pillow Fufuly was unveiled at tech show CES 2023 in Las Vegas on Jan. 5, its bizarre appearance and peculiar function won the company a CES Innovation Award and plenty of attention from international tech and design media.
Shaped like a cartoonish puff of air, the Fufuly pillow’s curvy form is designed to be hugged close to the body, where it gently expands and contracts as if it’s breathing. As gimmicky as that may sound, the pillow is actually based on Tokyo University research on controlling "the rhythm of breathing for relaxation by overwriting somatic sensation." Put simply, we naturally and unknowingly adjust our breathing patterns to match anything in close proximity, such as pets and babies, and that process produces a calming effect.
How Fufuly’s hidden mechanical device works is kept under wraps, but it’s likely similar to the Relaxushion, Tokyo University’s research cushion, which used a microcontroller-driven motor to push out and retract its padding. There are three Fufuly modes, each expanding and contracting the pillow to mimic different respiratory rates and movements. Regular and deep modes are designed to regulate the user’s breathing unconsciously, while a relaxation mode mirrors deep breathing exercises.
A breathing pillow may seem creepy, but according to Shunsuke Aoki, CEO of Yukai Engineering, the company’s own trials have shown that just five minutes of hugging the Fufuly can “reduce users’ stress levels and make them more alert.”
Safety first
Shellmet, an eco-friendly hard hat designed by creative startup studio Quantum and developed by advertising agency TBWAHakuhodo and Koushi Chemical Industry, was initially launched in mid-December last year as a crowdfunding project on Makuake crowdfunding platform. This month, however, Shellmet suddenly caught the eye of various international publications — from art sites such as Colossal to the renowned Wallpaper Magazine.
It’s not often that a safety helmet becomes a design phenomenon, but Shellmet, named Hotamet in Japan, is not your average hard hat. Shellmet is made of a new eco-friendly plastic called Shellstic (Karastic in Japan) that, as its name hints, uses recycled discarded scallop shells. It’s also the product of an innovative regional project aimed to reduce the annual 40,000 tons of shell waste produced in the village of Sarafutsu, Hokkaido, one of Japan’s major scallop fishing communities.
Shellstic is composed of 20% to 50% sterilized scallop shells, which are pulverized and converted into pellets before being blended with recycled waste plastic. The calcium carbonate of the pellets reinforces the moldable Shellstic, while the Shellmet’s shell-inspired ribbed structure not only keeps the helmet light at 500 grams but also makes it 30% stronger than a conventional hard hat. According to Koushi Chemical Industry, this makes Shellmet suitable for disaster preparedness and city cycling.
As a collaborative project with Sarafutsu, 270 Shellmets will be given to local fishermen, and there are plans to offer it as a gift to those who donate money to the village as part of Japan’s furusato nōzei (hometown tax donation) program.
Available in five sea-themed colors — coral white, sand cream, ocean blue, sunset pink and deep black — Shellmet is priced at ¥4,800 and can be preordered at a discount through Makuake before the official release date in March.
Take a seat
Internationally renowned architect Kengo Kuma has designed two limited-edition wooden chairs to help raise furusato nōzei-related donations in the town of Higashikawa, Hokkaido.
For the past few years, Kengo Kuma has been deeply invested in Higashikawa, one of Japan’s leading furniture manufacturing areas. In 2021, he established the annual Kengo Kuma and Higashikawa Kagu Design Competition and chose the town to establish Kagu House, his architectural firm’s first Kuma Mobile office and co-working space. The two new chair designs were born from close collaboration with two Higashikawa manufacturers — Woodwork Co. Ltd. and Prestige Japan Co. Ltd’s Time & Style furniture brand — and designed to showcase their woodworking skills.
The Sukesuke, meaning “see-through,” took Woodwork Co. Ltd. and Kengo Kuma over a year of experimentation to perfect. Its complex netlike form of plywood involves layering and bonding two to four 1.5-millimeter veneers of beech into thicker strips that are heated and molded into wavy shapes. Each piece is connected using joint work or bamboo nails, ensuring that no metal parts break Kuma’s seamlessly smooth wood design.
Magemage, made by Time & Style, is named after the Japanese word for “bending” and comprises just three pieces of bent plywood. One sheet forms the chair’s front leg, another serves as the seat and curves into the back leg, and the third becomes an angled backrest and back-leg support. Its plywood is a laminate of strong birch inner layers and outer veneers of softer Sakhalin fir, a Hokkaido wood with a distinctively attractive grain.
To receive a Kengo Kuma chair requires quite sizeable furusato nōzei donations — ¥2,000,000 for a Sukesuke, which comes with a plaque signed by Kuma, and ¥300,000 for a Magemage. Donors, however, can choose which Higashikawa community project they want that money to support. It's a worthy way to shop for an original Kuma work with the added benefit of personal tax deductions.
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