Winner: MasuIsu-Chair Made of Japanese Traditional Wooden Box by LoHA-Laboratory of Hiroshi Yamada Architects

The chair is all made of Japanese traditional wooden boxes. In addition, it is the chair where you can also feel the beauty of a Japanese traditional wooden box. This project is to make an important child’s chair using a Japanese traditional wooden box that was once treated as a lucky charm.

This chair is not only to make, but also to enjoy the process. This process of growing both the baby, the parents and the chair. It resembles the feeling of building blocks as the child grows. Children grow up so fast that a chair that records their growth would be fine. It resembles the feeling of accumulating years, like tree rings and strata. This chair is an endless growing chair. In other words, it is an unfinished chair. During infancy, children will be able to play with a Japanese traditional wooden box as blocks and communicate with their parents. As the child begins to sit, he adjusts the height of the chair’s legs by stacking a Japanese traditional wooden box as the child grows. Parents stack a Japanese traditional wooden box and adjust their height as needed, including armrests and backrests. This chair can feel the child’s growth through the act of “stacking a Japanese traditional wooden box” and nurture the joy and awareness as a parent. This chair will go beyond the function of furniture and become a piece of furniture like a family. This chair uses a ready-made “three syaku” (syaku = traditional unit of volume. About 54ml.) Japanese traditional wooden box rather than a custom-built Japanese traditional wooden box. Nothing special is done here. This chair is made by stacking Japanese traditional wooden boxes like building blocks. Parents pile up Japanese traditional wooden box while enjoying simple DIY as the child grows up. The cypress, which is the raw material of the Japanese traditional wooden box, is soft and comfortable to sit on, but easily scratched. However, even such wounds become memories of the child’s growth and are accumulated with the memories. This chair creates a catalyst for communication between parents and children. This chair is a chair where you can feel the child’s growth by stacking a Japanese traditional wooden box.