I established Super Potato as an interior design firm in 1973.
I was first involved with designs for bars, tearooms, and boutiques. During the prime time of Seibu Group, I worked with Ikko Tanaka for the environmental planning of the Seibu department stores as a design director to launch several stores domestically. Furthermore, we were involved creating the philosophy and retails for Mujirushi-youhin over 30 years.
Under my direction, the main principle of our design is to aim to become the forefront of design and emphasize Japanese tradition and geographical features as a method to express our thoughts whilst maintaining our originality.
One of our originality comes from the use of materials. We restructure the visual and physical attributes of materials found from demolished old Japanese architecture and tearooms – iron, timber, natural stone, and bricks – to incorporate them in our design to enhance the beauty of the space. I believe this is a new method of expressing nature. Furthermore, the importance of our design is how one feels about the natural changes surrounding us such as water, clouds, wind and light and how to express these feelings through design. As a result, I received the Mainichi design award in two consecutive years in 1984 and 1985.
Few years ago, we have renewed the design of Grand Hyatt Singapore consisting of a restaurant called Mezza9. This became the pivoting point for us to work on projects abroad where we have distributed our designs to Hyatt, Shangri-La and MGM groups in India, China, USA, etc. Rather than providing traditional European and modernized western designs for hotels which are often seen, we took a slightly different approach by focusing geographical features that are valued in each region and using our above concept for materials.
Space is not an imitation of the styles that have been developed by developing countries, yet a system which creates energy that may trigger us to proceed to the next generation. This energy is created when people face the mixture of concentrated feelings of the people who have gathered to one space — contradiction and frustration, aspiration for the past, hope and desire for the future.
In other words, people often question the power the space transmits and I’d like to provide them answers.
Information Credit: Super Potato Co Ltd
I was first involved with designs for bars, tearooms, and boutiques. During the prime time of Seibu Group, I worked with Ikko Tanaka for the environmental planning of the Seibu department stores as a design director to launch several stores domestically. Furthermore, we were involved creating the philosophy and retails for Mujirushi-youhin over 30 years.
Under my direction, the main principle of our design is to aim to become the forefront of design and emphasize Japanese tradition and geographical features as a method to express our thoughts whilst maintaining our originality.
One of our originality comes from the use of materials. We restructure the visual and physical attributes of materials found from demolished old Japanese architecture and tearooms – iron, timber, natural stone, and bricks – to incorporate them in our design to enhance the beauty of the space. I believe this is a new method of expressing nature. Furthermore, the importance of our design is how one feels about the natural changes surrounding us such as water, clouds, wind and light and how to express these feelings through design. As a result, I received the Mainichi design award in two consecutive years in 1984 and 1985.
Few years ago, we have renewed the design of Grand Hyatt Singapore consisting of a restaurant called Mezza9. This became the pivoting point for us to work on projects abroad where we have distributed our designs to Hyatt, Shangri-La and MGM groups in India, China, USA, etc. Rather than providing traditional European and modernized western designs for hotels which are often seen, we took a slightly different approach by focusing geographical features that are valued in each region and using our above concept for materials.
Space is not an imitation of the styles that have been developed by developing countries, yet a system which creates energy that may trigger us to proceed to the next generation. This energy is created when people face the mixture of concentrated feelings of the people who have gathered to one space — contradiction and frustration, aspiration for the past, hope and desire for the future.
In other words, people often question the power the space transmits and I’d like to provide them answers.
Information Credit: Super Potato Co Ltd