What did the Japanese design do that we didn't do?

In a recent survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan and China, respectively, 56% and 44% do not like each other, but do not like and can not erase each other's achievements and strengths. When I write articles for "Fashion Home" to Tokyo, so I really low understanding of Japan's product refinement, the daily life of the solution to the problem of life, especially the attitude presented by the unique to improve our own quality of life have a lot to learn from.

Contemporary design is to improve the quality of life in detail

The Japanese think that life can not be rough, because can not make it, the neglect of details will eventually improve the quality of life encountered bottlenecks, and the habit of rough people even if one day to create the pursuit of exquisite consciousness, also has no ability to improve. At this point, the Japanese are clearly already aware of the connection, so they maintain a high level of vigilance and a full range of exclusion. Life in Japan you will always feel the importance of the details everywhere.

A diapers, unused, usually no odd, once the urine wet, a rainbow pattern impressively appear in the baby's little fart, this small details both parents baby should change diapers, on the other hand, "rain Rainbow" humor so that the family of infants and toddlers often have the opportunity to show Yan a smile.

A cup, held in the palm of the hand, bending the hands of what is most comfortable, is about a cup design key.

A pair of chopsticks, wrapping paper printed on what words, with what font to highlight the quality of food?

What is the most appropriate way to hang a house with many lights?

The hotel has a greeting on the bed tonight. Which one is the poetry for guests who live here until the third day?

Dgs, Akita County, Japan is known for making bento boxes and sushi boxes, these wooden boxes are made of Chinese fir, fir can absorb water, but also to keep food is not easy to rot, a craftsman can make a piece of wood to bend into a circle for at least 5 years, stitched wood is used cherry bark, each craftsman has its own unique seam pattern. Marked at the most detailed points, the difference is almost everywhere in Japan's traditional products and modern products.

The refinement of the details of every detail in Japanese life reveals a sense of delicacy, this delicacy is not the same as the sophistication of the French, which shows the Japanese attitude to detail-details and the whole meaning of life are the same, and the quality and reliability of the whole is based on the refinement of every detail. , rough details are unlikely to produce a quality overall.

All designs are based on an in-depth study of behavioral patterns

And Japanese designers can do design services to the audience, in addition to their solution to the concept of the problem, at the operational level they are designed to the object of in-depth systematic research.

Kok Museum from the Department of Architecture, Japanese University graduate of a Light research institute specializes in lighting design, and then the Japanese bubble economy burst, but he still because he likes not to change.

In the understanding of the Corner museum, the light is not only to provide illumination, but also the channel for people to communicate, rather than the construction of ancillary facilities so simple.

Since it is to communicate-to make people, people and the environment to maintain the flow of communication, Kok Museum of fine arrangement of light point and brightness.

"Like me now there are a lot of Japanese designers to pursue negative design, negative design is to meet the needs of people under the premise of minimizing energy consumption. If there is no such lighting here, people will not be able to live, then this light is necessary, if not, then the light source is superfluous. People's lifestyle changes are related to lighting. ”

On the basis of this understanding, the design of the corner Pavilion is designed for many fine measurements, and the position of the light source is usually placed in the joint of space in order to allow people to get the necessary hints when walking. For example, the lighting focus of the community is access, because it is the most frequent access to places, safety is very important. In the area of road lighting, he chose only 10-15 watts of brightness. And for the use of a few lamps can be a complete outline of a building's geographical boundaries and contours, Kok Museum in the guarantee of image recognition based on the use of the bottom line, rather than for the eyes and ears, the use of light. It seems to him that many cities in China now spend a lot of money on the lighting of public facilities, the wealthy private houses are also apt to design their homes as "starry skies" in a way that is similar to the bursting of the Japanese bubble, in order to highlight the building, not to integrate lighting with architecture, So there's bound to be a lot of waste of energy, and the Japanese designer of his generation, who has experienced a bubble economy, is now focusing on how to design lights precisely according to actual needs.

"What a person does at home is an answer to the lighting design," said the Kok museum, "So I'm going to do the verb-style design--functional, well-defined, not adjective-designed--vague and ambiguous." ”

When he designed the living room for a man, he arranged six light sources in the space instead of spotlights on the ceiling, and he thought that the space architect had already completed the internal consistency of the room, so long as it was possible to achieve the minimum requirements for lighting in different areas. He did not intend to use the "Do" feature, but to reproduce the existing characteristics, when he gave the lighting to the function, the lighting will not play a complex expression of the role, and this pure through the precise calculation to achieve.

As for the temperature of the light source is also the corner Museum of the government and Britain carefully. If you want to highlight the quiet atmosphere of leisure, he will let the light point and brightness to create a point of candlelight effect, and if it is to show some things, he will use the white light source, to ensure that the color of the article will not be biased, he will also improve the light, so that people more pure understanding of the quality of goods.

"+0" the chief designer Shenze straight with a for the printing of good products designed CD machine quickly red, he later designed the humidifier, flashlight, telephone, remote control only for the type or material is not singular, but its meticulous refinement of the details and the workmanship of the work of the other people trying to counterfeit it.

In an interview in Japan, we saw that many Japanese designs did not attempt to pursue exaggeration, surprise, and in a seemingly plain appearance, the skill shown in detail was quite profound.

This kind of lean ability can be called the basic quality of human being in Japanese national. This is a concept that does not accept "almost" on any big matter, but is also a highly trained group. One of the most impressive details is that at the gate of Disneyland, a group of children sat on the ground, waiting for the teacher to summon the whole uniform to leave their place as if they had never been. Such a group is capable of doing what they want to do and will do it in place. When they want to be kind to themselves, they can make a good product for themselves, then our good life depends on what to achieve it?

Some people say that Japan has to be frugal because of energy scarcity, but they have a much higher quality of life than we do, but in fact not rich we are constantly creating high energy consumption of the building, many products because of poor design and technology has become very close to the rubbish heap things ... The life of these details will not make us richer or more comfortable, but when we do not want others to use shoddy products to deceive themselves, whether we also intentionally or unintentionally with the indulgence of rough, and sent others also include their own life of various ideals?

Design to solve the relationship between trans-chronology elements

People are living in time, the composition of life must contain the dimension of time, historical protectionists believe that the traditional value is not modern life subversive, and the modernist always think that exaggerating the meaning of tradition will only hinder the development of society, this hostility between the two in today's China seems to become irreconcilable contradictions, But in Japan, the whole of the city, the whole block and even specific to a house, a product does not seem to need to choose between tradition or modern struggle. Time is not a Japanese design or Japanese real life to be high-profile deal with an element.

The world's top brand franchises are located on the Omotesando Road in Tokyo's most fashionable neighborhoods, its luxurious and modern degree does not allow Milan, New York and Paris, but in the streets on both sides of the main road, there are still many old buildings, which are still being used today, rather than being sealed off as relics, for a visit. More significant, of course, is that they have not been demolished in a block of 6 million yen per square metre of house prices.

In Japan during the bubble economy, land prices soared all the way, but even during that period, Japan did not have as much demolition of old buildings as China currently does, so the average life span of Japan can be long, which means that the community environment and landscape can remain stable, Generation after generation of people from different years of architecture to understand the history of this country and aesthetic, the owner of the house can be regarded as assets, continuous maintenance, meticulous care. This relationship between the people and the House can make people living in the time to believe that the things of different times can live together in the same space, this way of thinking so that in the mix, fushion popular in the world today can easily adapt to this era.

Demouron & Herzog's design for Prada's store on Omotesando became a sensation in the fashion world two years ago, it was like a meteorite-like singularity and the sugar-like material that made the brand a kind of avantgarde and youthful temperament, which is what Japan's new generation of young upstarts are expecting. And in the alley opposite Prada, it's a small pub and a workshop that a new generation of fashionable people will patronize.

Also on the Omotesando, there is an ancient monastery standing quietly beside the road, it has a very poetic name: the plum window courtyard. From the roadside along the bamboo trail to the door, still is the image of the ancient Japanese courtyard, stone, shiting, bamboo forest, in addition to the ground lights along the road, you can hardly see the shadow of modern society, but after the door to the right a turn, a glass curtain wall of the seven-storey building in view, this is the Okuma of the new monastery.

The building, which resembles the office, has a typical modernist character, the temperament of the traditional Japanese temples seems to be no trace, but the careful experience found that the glass curtain wall like a side of the pond, reflecting the wandering skylight cloud shadow, this artistic conception and the Japanese Zen practice in the same vein, modernism and the ancient religious tradition through.

Okuma in talking about his choice of material thinking, said: "Bamboo is a very traditional material, it is clean, concise, it is easy to create atmosphere, but it is very easy and modern materials such as glass together." "The Bamboo Grove in the plum window is outside the courtyard, the glass is the outer wall of the building, at the foot of the Great Wall of the commune, Okuma is directly to the bamboo on the outside wall, which makes the texture of the wall produced a rich change, and the internal living environment is pure modern, but no one felt that the traditional and modern will interfere with each other.

NEED ' K brand designer Ms. Mina Sato's work in recent years has been done with more than two fabrics, such as leather and silk, feather and Velvet, in the use of these fashionable materials at the same time, Mina Sato the Japanese shogunate era of family signs, kimono on the pattern as a curtain fabric of the basic patterns, at the same time, In its high-grade bedding and curtains of the use of color, she used the Japanese classical residential lighting from the window of the color, and the texture and color of straw mats, withered landscape of stone texture and hue is used in the relative application of the young people's product line. The frontier of tradition and modernity is not so clear and difficult to transcend because of the age that the symbol represents.

In the face of the traditional attitude of Japan, we can realize that if we give up the way of thinking and behavior that our tradition has left us, our uniqueness is very difficult to have, and Japan's attitude towards modernity let us see, not actively adapt to modern life, the so-called tradition can only be viewed as cultural relics can not intervene in reality.

Design is more about solving the problems of the past, the present and the future. When we do not respect tradition, tradition will not nourish us, so which land can we grow?

Advocating modernity is not necessarily a negation of tradition

While many Japanese designers have inherited traditional Japanese culture, the enthusiasm for modernity remains a high priority.

The importance of cost consciousness in modernity is prevalent in many Japanese contemporary designs and has been solved very effectively.

In recent years, the reputation of the "+0" of the design director of the Zeizhi for the printing of good products for the CD machine only sold more than 5,000 yen, equivalent to more than 300 yuan. No printed goods every year and Shenze straight, Okuma, Shigeru and other well-known designers signed, please its design can be used for the public daily necessities, and these necessities of life not only excellent design, excellent quality, and the price is not expensive, no printing products advocated by "plain and easy to use" is its business proposition and design philosophy, Designers with similar ideas and designs with this quality are found everywhere in Japan.

When Matsuura was designing a jewellery shop with only 20 square meters, there is no extravagant means, but with a very down-to-earth way to make the door and desktop to create a unique effect, and the original is only 300 yuan to sell the jewelry store in the shops lined up in the streets appear quite excellent.

Another problem that is contained in modernity is also very successful in Japanese contemporary design, and that is cleanliness.

It is known that the Japanese love clean, but can do one person a room or even a city to maintain adequate cleaning is the need for design, management, education and products and many other conditions to support.

Japan's contemporary design after the bursting of the bubble economy, the use of subtraction has become a trend.

In designing his villa for the chairman of a large group, the Kok Museum reduced the light source to the fewest points and chose a very simple spherical light. The owner at first also blame the designer of this arrangement is too shabby, but when he will be his own paintings at home in the one by one hanging only found, hanging painting became the most High-profile object, when the owner finally realized that the family function of subtraction to focus on clear, visual simple transparent.

Okuma in the design of Stone Museum, only stone a stone, indoor lighting is only the simplest way-brick with a row of holes, so that natural light from these holes into the room. This kind of design makes the architectural vision concise, the function realizes also natural calm. The aesthetic proposition of this kind of simplicity is to make modern use of the artistic conception of "emptiness" in Japanese aesthetic tradition.

In the streets of Tokyo, we can not see like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other big cities in China, the common color-whether the shop façade or people's clothing, but these look shallow colors are refined by the details of the design conditioning have style.

Such a solution to the reality of the concept and methods of the international metropolis is not losing its fashion, and so that each individual can live in their own details, and this is also the Japanese chrysanthemum and Sword of the national identity in the modern society of a projection-with a supple attitude to face the pressure, with the perseverance of the ego to complete the pressure across.

The pressures of modernization that China has faced in the last 100 years are immense, the means of digestion of this kind of pressure has also done different attempts, serve, serve is the most widely used slogan, but it took more than 100 years without success, because we have not really solved the problem of modernization and what is called modernization. A firm total westernization of the masses to drive the public to the West wind, but the wind blew a few rounds, after the wind, China still stubbornly maintain a lot of traditional thinking and values, psychologically, many Chinese are actually afraid of modernization may make themselves lose more. But on the other hand, for a variety of reasons, we are also using the destruction of tradition to show the determination of modernization, when China does not make such an either-or-say, the contradictions between the traditional and modern may not be so difficult to reconcile today.

To complement the local characteristics with Western characteristics

When Tagore visited Japan in 1916, when confronted with the trend of total Westernization, he said: "All nations have an obligation to show their national things in front of the world." If there is nothing to show, it can be said that this is a national crime, worse than death, human history will not forgive this. "This passage has brought a great shock to Kawabata's mind, and the world has thought that Japan's intervention in the United States will give up its identity and confidence in the design of Japan today to see this conjecture fallacy."

Today, the rhetoric of total Westernization has existed in China for nearly 100 years, and in the past 30 years, China's reform and opening-up has increased our enthusiasm for globalization, but it is often confused whether globalization and Westernization are the same thing. And for nearly one or two years, reviving Chinese traditional culture as a fresh voice is constantly improving the tone, but what is the national thing? How to show? What is the real value of it? The answer is still not clear. The simple transplantation of traditional symbols and the hard imitation of Western designs have made contemporary China not present enough to influence the design of the world, our direction of life has been waiting for others to guide us, but we have not been able to share with the rest of the world our unique thinking about life and the inspiring way to solve problems.

In the design of the community lighting system at eight Wei-cho, the Japanese Alpine County, light to do dot distribution rather than linear, residential road lighting with lighting and building entrance lights on the mountain distribution, high and low, reflected in the community next to the river, modern architecture in this way with the nature of a poem.

"People and the environment to establish a harmonious relationship, people need to be able to understand the environment, for example, you have a river in your life, you want to have feelings with it, you can love this river," he said. The community is on the river, and its characteristics are related to it, so the design is to highlight this feature.

In fact, if the region is considered, there is a lot of work to be done in design. ”

In Japan, many designers will receive the design invitation from overseas, the architectural designer Island a Hao and the pine best bead cat firm is in Vietnam, the Middle East and so on different regions design works. Two years ago, they made a design experiment in Vietnam about indoor air convection in order to find out how to better serve the local people in the tropical climate.

"An Ivy-League designer has a strong sense of symbolism, for example, when everyone mentions Ando will think of clear water concrete, they will put their own things around the world, but the new generation of Japanese designers will be based on local conditions to do the design of the locals." Okuma This analysis of the difference between the two generations of designers.

Japan after the Meiji Restoration because of a large number of acceptance of European culture, and its national nature of the former "Don Center and Soul" into "and the soul of the foreign only", after World War II, Japanese culture seems to absorb more Western cultural symbols and aesthetic interest, from the increase of loanwords in Japanese to young people's hair coloring, It is not difficult to see Japan's "Westernization" efforts, but there is no doubt that Japan still attaches importance to the "place" concept, their attention to the "West" and the Japanese pay attention to the details of the style is the same, they will be very clear selective "Western" culture which can be used.

When we were in Tokyo, coincides with the exhibition of Corbusier works in Tokyo, the modernist architectural design of the ancestors of the 20th century urban architecture design and even industrial designs have a great impact, the exhibition from the planning to the exhibition lasted three years, the entire exhibition covers the Corbusier painting, sculpture, architecture, furniture and many other works, A house model was built in the showroom-Corbusier's gift to his wife, 20m2 's apartment.

During our week in Tokyo, there are as many as five or six design-related exhibitions, with different design concepts designed to meet the public, which is a marketing education and a way to receive feedback from the public. Tokyo's international exchange atmosphere is not as strong as the European and American Cosmopolitan, it is not difficult to understand why Tokyo has become Asia's fashion capital.

If China also wants to build such a city with world influence, only by upgrading the level of hardware is obviously not enough, please foreign designers to come here and design change more on the visual level, a city's communication ability and ideological span still depends on the comprehensive quality of the city, a country is the same.

Deep understanding of the local advantages can be fully played

At the same time, we also see Japan's cross-cultural exchanges to maintain the sober. At the 17th annual Lifestyle exhibition in Tokyo, Disney invited nine Japanese artists and designers to use Mickey Mouse's styling to make a series of home products, who will recognize Mickey Mouse's classic styling, but at the same time you will smell the deep Japanese taste, This design attitude and manner in the Japanese designers to the international process throughout all areas and continued for years.

Japan generation after generation, one after another designer, together to create the image of Japanese design, they did not abandon their own as a Japanese cultural identity, and this group of conscious efforts to make the value of Japanese design has been recognized by the world. The design of the day with the German design of Italy as the design of the world's unique design style, each designer can enjoy the platform, but also continue to the consolidation and extension of the platform to contribute their own value.

In the face of the internet era, the international style of the emerging reality, Sako design firms, involved in the construction of Soho and kids children's bookstore and other places designed by the designer Matsuura said: "This is a normal change, but local can also be preserved." A city should consciously retain some of the heritage, whether it is building or other facilities, only this is the complete city, people do not in other places can do good things. ”

"The Japanese design will start with a very practical detail and return to the details," Matsuura said of his design for the Fenrich Dream Shop in Beijing. Because people react differently to different things, they are designed to express these reactions. Japanese craftsmanship can be very fine, but if I use that technical standard as a prerequisite for my design in China, I will not succeed. So I will respect the reality of China. I asked Chinese workers to hang all the fluorescent lamps, which they could easily do, and not artificially expensive. If this is the case in Japan, the cost will be very high, this is China's advantage, design is to be in every detail to find the best solution here. ”

This article source: Ying Zhixian's Blog