After its successful entry into the Japanese eye wear market a couple of years ago, we were expecting the frenzy around J!NS PC glasses to run its course and die out as these kinds of hypes often do in Japan…But not only have JIN company stocks multiplied by six since the launch of the product, the company is planning on expanding to China and even entering the American and European markets. Considering the relatively short and domestic lifecycle of products in Japan, the lasting popularity of J!NS PC glasses is pretty surprising.
So what makes these glasses such a great hit?
All of this goes back to the company president. After JIN company employees heard him often complaining about how much working on his computer all day tired out his eyes, they started looking into what exactly was causing their president so much pain. Further research revealed several papers and articles about blue light emitting screens, energy-efficient light-bulbs and their link to eye stress. Determining the culprit of their president’s eye problem, the staff at JIN got to work…and approximately five years later came out with J!NS PC glasses.
Tested by eye wear professionals as well as by employees at a number of IT companies, the glasses garnered a good reputation from both word of mouth as well as through a carefully implemented promotional strategy. This included progressively lowered price adjustments, and collaborations with popular figures including ONE PIECE, Arashi’s Sakurai Sho, and even gaming hardware company Alienware.
The distribution strategy of the glasses are also particularly interesting. J!NS PC glasses are very easy to get a hold of as they can be bought in either one of the country’s dedicated 500 stores, online, or more unconventionally at vending machines, and even at a drive-through in Gunma prefecture.
And if all of this hasn’t already convinced you that J!N kind of know what they’re doing here (and perhaps also that you may need to buy a pair), there is the price. Cheap glasses in Japan are not something that is hard to find – you can usually find something between 5000 to 20,000 JPY (50 to 200 USD). However, J!N PC glasses start at 3990 JPY (about 40 USD) and require no extra cost for any prescription single focus lenses, meaning that people can afford to own several pairs to suit their tastes.
This product offers not only real health benefits to a generation living in a world were computer usage is rapidly increasing and becoming the new office work norm, but also caters to those who want to use glasses as a fashionable accessory. In this context, JIN’s plans to export their innovative product don’t sound unfeasibly ambitious – especially since their brand has already gained a degree of popularity overseas thanks to online shops. How successful the product will be in European or American markets remains to be seen.
Many of the devices used to produce the artwork for “Materializing” are machines that you might expect in labs or factories. But fellow hobbyists behold, they have finally been liberated and are now available to the public, though their prices remain rather prohibitive: at approximately 7,000 USD a piece for the desktop version, the laser cutter will not yet decorate our garages, though the slightly more affordable 3D printer from Cubify might.
This fact has spurred on a new type of business in Japan: Providing space and machines to the creative people out there who won’t or can’t get them for themselves. Here is why:
First, Japan is known for having issues with space. Japanese houses and apartments are quite small compared to their European or American counterparts and more often than not do not have garage space. And if space wasn’t enough of an issue already, the obligation to return any space you rent in the exact condition you got it is another: just setting up an easel in your apartment is not recommended. So providing people with space to make, to create and let them know about it is already a good business idea. Japan is also a rental society much more than other countries (bands jam together in rental studios not home basements).
And now creative people do with no less than four different maker spaces being born in Tokyo alone from 2009 up to today. Ranging from the hipster Fab Cafe in Shibuya, where you can sip a glass of ice-tea as you 3D print or laser cut, to the full blown recently opened, Maker Base in Meguro with wood-work and metal-work machines and several laser cutters and 3D printers, through the techy Hacker Space in were you can learn about and make everything from robots to your very own small computer with a raspberry pie or the Fablab, Tokyo based DIY lovers and hobbyist can create to their hearts content.
But the most important part is that not only can they create, but they can also find help and new ideas thanks to a growing community and helpful staff members. It can be courses to get the hang of a machine like in Maker Base or a technology like Hacker Space, or it can be offering a retail platform for your product like Fab Cafe and Maker Base. It can just be a place to connect people that need something and people who can make and help the sparks fly and it can create beautiful stories….like the man that came to Maker Base to train and make an engraved engagement ring for his fiancee or this author who made a personalized 3D printed pen for a friend’s birthday, at Shibuya’s Fab Cafe.
And to top it all of, the 22nd of September, the last piece of the puzzle came into existence with the opening in Meguro of Rainbow Soko operated by T-plaster an interior remodeling company, that uses and converted an old under-ground factory space into creative space. It offers up for rent small office like rooms, where people can set up anything they want, from a drawing/ painting space to a music room.
Finally it is important to point out that not only these spaces have become very popular, featuring frequently in the Japanese and Foreign press as well as on television and participating in interesting event such as the up coming Maker’s fair, but they also provide a competing presence on the online D.I.Y market places field by not only providing the platform but also a physical outlet to make products in, giving them an advantage over competitors such as Etsy.
While ShiftEast posts usually cover the myriad of innovations, people, events and concepts that make up the Asia region’s dynamic creative and technological scene, we don’t often blog about some of the interesting events that happen on our doorstep, perhaps because they are held so close by. Our office is based at the Tokyo location of Impact HUB – a space that is part event venue, part share-office, and all about fostering a real community of people who want to make an impact. HUB Tokyo often hosts seminars, lectures and workshops with individuals and groups of people gleaned from their global network, and there is an upcoming talk by one of Soft Energy’s earliest advocates, Amory Lovins, that we would be remiss not to mention.
An environmental scientist, physicist, writer and recipient of a whole slew of various awards and accolades, Amory Lovins’ expertise, as well as his entrepreneurial spirit and persistence for over 40 years has seen him become one of the world’s leading authorities on the efficient use and sustainable supply of energy. In 1982 he co-founded the Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, non-profit organisation that describes itself as not just a think-tank, but as a “think-and-do tank”. His knowledge has been sought after by leaders in both private and public sectors, and his list of clients include corporations like Rio Tinto, Wal-Mart, and Deutsche Bank as well as startups and governments in the U.S., Australia and Germany. He has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Fortune magazine, and in 2009 was named one of Foreign Policy’s top 100 global thinkers as well as one of Time magazine’s most influential people.
While the question of energy as a resource and how to best utilise it is currently a hotly contested and much debated about topic, one of the fascinating aspects of Lovins’ work apart from his ideas on Soft Energy is his involvement in pushing for energy to even be put on the agenda long before governments, corporations and the mainstream media were acknowledging the need for such discussion. HUB Tokyo’s event is intended as a conversation that will also focus on the successes, struggles and strategies Lovins’ has experienced and implemented as a changemaker with broader questions that concern anyone interested in understanding, and potentially changing people’s mindsets thrown in the mix.
We will be in attendance, and if this is something that interests you too the event will be held on the 7th of November. For more information please visit the event registration page.
Unlike some of the bigger trade shows or expos which tend to exhibit relatively completed products, the Digital Content Expo puts the spotlight on prototype systems and technology that are still squarely in the R&D stage. Describing its function as being a ‘bridge for digital innovation’, the focus of this event is on exhibiting the creative potential and possibilities of technology, and communicating the efforts of research laboratories and universities exploring this to a wider audience.
We’ve already blogged a little bit about the AquaTop Display, a system which turns ordinary bath water into an interactive screen, and to follow up on that we have a two part post on some of the other technologies, systems and concepts that were being exhibited. The first of these posts is on some of the displays that were exploring the potential of simulated environments, whether it was augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), or virtual reality (VR).
The Oculus Rift started gaining attention as a Kickstarter project last year as a VR headset intended to immerse gamers into a simulated environment by combining a ultra-wide field of view, high resolution display and rapid head-tracking system. The hype surrounding Oculus Rift was definitely palatable at DC Expo this year, and there were a number of displays that were taking on the challenge of creating content that would work with this immersive headset. OCULUS FESTIVAL exhibited an experience that utilised touch through hand shaking and gripping actions. The movements of the mounted rubber hand are made to be synchronised with the actions of any user wearing the Oculus Rift headset, creating a more dynamic, lifelike interaction with virtual characters like Hatsune Miku.
A group of students at Keio University also used the Oculus headset to showcase a project called the Virtual Rope Slider as part of the IVRC 2013 (International collegiate Virtual Reality Contest), a contest which focused on student projects related to interactivity and robots. Users wearing the Oculus headsets sit on a motorised seat attached to a Tarzan-esque rope, and chose from five different simulated scenarios which are projected on a screen in front of them: Jungle, Edo, Space, Fantasy and City. Each simulation works in relation with the movements of the seat to create the sensation of being propelled into the environment chosen.
Another take on the experience the experience of flying or soaring through an environment was exhibited by Solidray and their “Flight Experience” setup, which aimed to create the sensation of soaring back and forth in mid air on a swing. The experience is based around a system they call Duo Site – a setup that is based around two white screens each 2.2m X 2.9m in size, set up perpendicular to each other. Two projectors are used to project 3D animations onto each of the two displays while the user stands facing the entire setup.
The user wears 3D glasses which are attached with a sensor to track head movements. A sense of immersion is created using vection – relying on the illusion of self-motion created when a large portion of a person’s visual field moves. Although a user remains stationary, confusing the visual system by wearing 3D glasses and watching a moving environment (in this case what you would see if you were swinging back and forth mid-air) allows the user to experience different sensations of movement in a simulated environment.
The relatively simple setup of the Duo Site system allows for a flexible interaction system which could be used with additional devices such as the Kinect or other types of motion sensors and game controllers to create any number of interesting augmented or virtual experiences that feel truly immersive.
On the other hand, the University of Tokyo’s Ishikawa Oku Laboratory showcased some of their work in Dynamic Image Control (DIC), a research theme that aims to explore how dynamic phenomena – such as patterns on a flying bee wing, or a red blood cell flowing through a vein – that is difficult comprehend when observed with the human eye or even with conventional imaging systems which have a relatively slow frame-rate, can be shown in a comprehensible and intelligible way. On display was “Lumipen” (るみぺん), a projection mapping system intended for use with fast motion/high speed objects.
Currently, traditional projection mapping is mainly used with static objects and surfaces, as it is difficult to project an image or animation on a surface that is moving at high speed without some sort of misalignment between image and object due to delays in the mapping systems used. To solve this problem, Lumipen uses a high-speed vision sensor that can capture a thousand images per second to detect the movement of a moving object, while a high-speed optical gaze controller called Saccade Mirror ensures that the direction of the projected image is aligned within milliseconds.
The Lumipen system enables content-rich visual information such as videos and graphics to be projected onto fast moving objects in real-time, and could even be used in dynamic situations such as concerts and sports games in the future.
Another lab based at the University of Tokyo, Naemura Lab, presented a mixed reality interface called DeruChara which can form 3D images in mid-air that respond to user interaction. The system works through a depth sensor and projector that is set up above a flat surface laid with several physical blocks. The depth sensor maps the terrain of the surface and maps any changes and user interactions based on shadows. For the Expo display, moving the blocks caused a small chick to appear and move around.
There was generally a pretty good mix of displays both of new systems being developed to support interactions, as well as displays that focused more on using existing systems to create interesting immersive experiences. While all of the displays were not finished products per se, they do showcase some of the interesting developments we can expect to see expanded upon as content increasingly mixes simulation with “reality”.Stay tuned for next time when we focus more on some of the interesting interfaces that were exhibited at the Expo.
Always in search of new things to blog about, we went out to the Digital Content Expo in Odaiba this Thursday and we were not disappointed.This is our first post showing what we found
The idea came to one of its creators while in the bath, because of the difficulty of bringing an information device such as a personal computer or a tablet in the bathtub. The project took six months to be conceptualized and prototyped, though it’s currently still in the prototype phase.
The system is set up around a bathtub or a 600mm x 900mm x 250mm square plastic tank full of water mixed with commercially available bath milk, on which the display is projected. Both of the containers are equipped with waterproof speakers on the inside to provide greater interactivity. Above the water are suspended a projector and a depth camera (such as Microsoft Kinect) connected to a personal computer. Currently two displays can be projected on the water, a content viewer (for videos or photos) and a jellyfish shooting game.
The liquid display enables the user to become one with it, making for a truly immersive experience as the different functionalities of the display can be controlled both from above and bellow the surface level.
Though, as said before it is still in a prototyping stage, it it not difficult to take a leap and imagine this system being implemented in homes…imagining how much easier it would make a parents life when it comes to making their children take a bath makes it an interesting innovation…until said children refuse to leave the bathtub that is.
Japan’s largest IT and electronics trade show has always been anticipated as an event that showcases some of the best that the country has to offer in consumer electronics. Compared to 2012, there were about 40% fewer exhibitors in attendance, as well as a couple of absences (noticeably KDDI, who was rumored to attend this year’s event), which may have contributed to the slightly subdued atmosphere this year.
The theme for this year’s show encouraged submissions of technologies, products and services aimed at making people’s lives both richer and more comfortable. Titled ‘Smart Innovation: Technology for Future Society and Lifestyles’, CEATEC 2013 was all about what was “Smart”. There were presentations on “smart community”, “smart networking”, and “smart devices”, and a lot of exhibitors displayed innovations that built on this idea of more seamless, enriched living facilitated by technology.
“Smart Devices” was a theme heavily repeated in the “digital display” category. Ultra HD, big screen displays boasting 4K or 8K resolution were presented alongside new display concepts, like Sharp’s IGZO “frameless” screen.
On the content side of things, exhibitors took advantage of these new developments and presented content management systems and services aimed at creating a user experience specifically designed for digital/”smart” TV. NHK showcased Hybridcast, a system that enables users to access interactive, information-rich content across multiple devices via a broadband network and HTML5 interface. Similarly, Toshiba’s REGZA TimeOn is a suite of services that uses the cloud to make the television experience more interactive. For example, viewers can enable a Twitter feed tied to a particular channel’s hashtag, which will then display what other viewers are saying about a particular program in real-time.
Mobility was also a big theme in this year’s conference, with mobility device demonstrations taking up a large area in Halls 7 and 8. Following an announcement that it would bring autonomous cars to the market by 2020, Nissan demonstrated its Autonomous Drive Vehicle (‘Leaf’). A three-lap course for the car to self-navigate through was set up, and required the vehicle to pass by parked cars as well perceive stop signs and handle crossing intersections. Although demonstrated in a restricted space, the car can drive up to speeds of about 70 km/h, and utilises a radar system to anticipate obstacles within a 80m perimeter.
In the same space, Toyota and Honda both demonstrated smaller-scale personal mobility vehicles: the Winglet , and the Uni-Cub respectively.
A number of the bigger exhibitors, including Mitsubishi, Toyota and Toshiba used the Lifestyle and Society Stage to showcase displays promoting smart grid systems for the home, or HEMS (Home Energy Management System). HEMS collects real-time data on power usage and presents it visually, enabling consumers to easily track, monitor and ultimately adjust their energy consumption levels accordingly.
In a similar vein, “Smart Homes” were concepts presented as part of next-generation living. “Smart Appliances” such as washing machines which could send consumers status-updates, and air-conditioners which could be controlled outside the home through smartphones, were often presented as part of a networked web of devices that functioned with HEMS to not only ensure a more pleasant living environment, but a more energy efficient lifestyle as well.
Healthcare was also a category that garnered a lot of attention. Building on the increasing popularity of using quantified data to self-monitor aspects of daily life, Omron showcased a series of inter-connectable devices that helps an individual keep track of their body weight, temperature, sleep patterns, heart rate and blood pressure. A majority of the products were designed with the ability to wirelessly send collected data to a central location, which also makes it easier for third parties, such as doctors, to monitor an individual and intervene if necessary.
While several other companies, including Nordic Semiconductor, Goo Karadalog, as well as Korean exhibitor Dae Kyoung Ind.Co. (above) also offered their own personal health monitoring devices, the most noticeable of these was Sharp’s Healthcare Support Chair. A rather futuristic-looking take on the traditional doctor’s examination chair, Sharp’s spherical contraption can measure a person’s weight, blood pressure, heart rate and temperature all in one sitting. In addition, it can also determine how healthy a patient’s blood vessels are and assess their body balance. All of this information is displayed on a shield of multi-paneled screens, and the information can also be sent straight to your doctor.
Other products and services which made use of wireless data transmission and cloud storage were SFK Medical Company’s “suisui Nurse”, an application that allows nurses conducting home visits to directly send vital information as well as pictures to a doctor, and Fujitsu’s “Petcloud” which collects health-related data about your pet throughout its lifetime. There were also a number of “babysitter” robots that provide companionship and in extreme cases monitor an individual in need of care such as the elderly or young children such as NEC’s PaPeRo or Fujisoft’s “Palro”.
And like any type of fairs CEATEC makes no exception to the award giving practice with twenty-four awards being given out during the five days event. The CEATEC organizers selected eleven grand-Prix winners and semi grand-Prix winners in Products, Network & services, key technology and core technology categories as well as a Review panel special award that went to Keio University’s Katsura laboratory part of the department of system design engineering. Two special awards were given out by the Ministry of Internal Affars and communication and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to in the same order, NTT docomo for its Next-generation mobile communication system (5G) and Kyocera corporation for Piezo film speaker “smart sonic (R) sound”. Finally an independent panel of journalist versed in either I.T. or consumer electronics gave out awards to companies for innovative product or concepts that would have the most influence on the U.S. market the grand-Prix of that award was given to Nissan motors co.,ldt for its Autonomous drive vehicle.
While the kissaten offers a kind of nostalgic space to sit back and leisurely indulge in the atmosphere of yesteryear, canned and ready-to-drink (RTD) varieties of coffee comfortably make their home in the highly competitive world of fast-paced convenience. A mainstay that has carved out its own permanent spot in the over 5 million vending machines dotted across Japan, canned coffee is not only a pioneer product in the market, it has, over time proven itself to be its dominant contender. So influential is this canned beverage in fact, that the All Japan Coffee Association attributes canned coffee as one of the factors that contributed to the popularity of coffee itself in Japan as a whole.
Developed by UCC Ueshima Coffee Co., a coffee manufacturer and retailer based in Kobe whose products maintain their popularity today, canned coffee first became available in 1969. UCC refined technology that produced a type of coffee beverage that could be kept in a can for long periods of time without losing its flavour, and introduced the world’s first long-lasting canned coffee drink containing milk. However it was only after this product innovation was introduced during the World Exposition in Osaka a year later that canned coffee as a product began to really catch on.
The invention and subsequent spread of the hot/cold vending machine in 1973 by Pokka Corporation allowed canned coffee a convenient (and eventually ubiquitous) retail unit that could supply anybody a coffee drink in most places and situations – whether it be while waiting for the train, walking home, or in the office or at school. To date, canned coffee remains the main offering of the over 2 million vending machines dedicated to selling beverages.
Traditionally, canned and RTD coffee has been targeted towards male consumers, and the associated promotion and advertising reflects this. A slew of manly celebrities such as Brad Pitt (for Roots), Arnold Schwarzennegar (for Suntory) and, perhaps most well known, Tommy Lee Jones (for Boss), have all lent their chiseled visages to a particular brand of canned coffee. In addition, most of the popular brands of canned coffee utilise the salaryman (and a lot of wistful gazing into the distance) to reinforce the stoic testosterone of their campaigns.
In more contemporary times, the concept of easily available coffee has taken on a life of its own, and a wider variety of similarly convenient RTD coffee (or coffee-flavoured milk, if you prefer) has become readily available at any local convenience store or supermarket aisle. “Taste innovation” is particularly important to drink manufacturers, and novelty coffees that include unusual and traditional ingredients as well as products that are purported to provide numerous health benefits have also been popping up.
There is now an astounding array of options that differ in not only taste, but packaging: from chilled single serve coffee served in stylishly designed cups (カップ/チルドコーヒー) to coffee served in plastic PET bottles that can be carried around throughout the day (ペットボトルコーヒー) and paper carton packaging (紙パックコーヒー). Ready-to-drink coffee is no longer confining itself solely to the male demographic.
For regulatory purposes, there are four main coffee/coffee-related categories that broadly encompass most convenience coffee options: “coffee” (コーヒー) which contains the equivalent of 5g of coffee beans per 100g of beverage, “coffee drink” (コーヒー飲料) which contains between 2.5g and 5g, and “coffee added” chilled drinks for anything less than 2.5g (コーヒー入り清涼飲料). In addition, coffee drinks which contain more than 3% milk solids are sometimes classified as “milk products”.
So what does this type of coffee actually taste like? Although the traditional canned varieties are typically milky and very sweet, there is now such a broad array of options that we decided to do a comparison of a couple of popular varieties.
In total we sampled fifteen different brands of coffee: ten in the “coffee” category, four in the “milk products” category, and one in the “coffee drink” category. As expected, the staple canned coffee varieties (Georgia, FIRE, Wonda and Boss) were generally very sweet with a milky taste vaguely reminiscent of coffee, and there was no discernible difference in taste worth noting.
A quick survey of opinions around the HUB shared office unanimously concluded that the “Healthia” coffee, a brand manufactured by pharmaceutical company Kao and marketed as an aid for weight loss, tasted the most terrible, while Roots Aroma was dark, (expectantly) aromatic and viewed pretty favourably for a canned coffee.
We also sampled chilled cup coffee varieties that are especially popular among young women. Dessert-themed chilled cup coffee is becoming an increasingly common sight with flavours like tiramisu, chocolate cappuccino and praline, making appearances on the shelves of convenience stores and supermarkets.
The market for this type of “chilled cup” is dominated by Morinaga’s Mt.Rainer brand, who first introduced this style of coffee in 1995. In partnership with Suntory, this style of coffee was also the way that Starbucks chose to enter the RTD market in 2005 with their ‘Discoveries‘ range. In terms of packaging, the slightly sophisticated appeal of this product partially lies in the fact that the cup design enables consumers to elegantly sip their coffee through a straw – an image which flies in the face of the stereotypical salaryman chugging down his can of coffee at the train station. Taste-wise, these varieties use manufacturing processes which do not involve huge temperature differences (like canned coffee), and have shorter storage lives which usually results in greater freshness and flavour of these drinks when compared to traditional canned varieties (something also reflected in their price tags).
Despite the trends towards freshly brewed coffee (convenience stores are installing espresso machines in their outlets for example) and the growing popularity of home-brewing, canned coffee doesn’t look like it is going to be disappearing any time soon. As a category of drink, both the products and experience of drinking this type of convenience coffee is quite distinct from how coffee is consumed elsewhere, and it makes up only one part of a person’s average coffee “repertoire” so to speak. Both traditional canned varieties and RTD products exist alongside the kissaten as well as an eclectic mix of other cultural-social spaces including chain-store franchises, speciality coffee shops and cafes, and all of this is part of what makes the experience of drinking coffee in Japan so dynamic.
In order to ensure that human beings stay relevant in the context of a rapidly digitised and automated society, our creativity should be used and stimulated by enhancing interactions and experiences with new technology. Across Asia many corporations, start ups, R&D institutes, and universities are finding ways to apply human-centric designs in the production of technological tools that can be useful for our everyday lives. This is part one of a series focussing innovation incubators in Asia, showcasing the Real Projects in development by students at Keio Media Design.
Food Mediacreates new ways of cooking and eating, by applying media design techniques to non-traditional mediums, such as molecular gastronomy, food styling and photography, fusion food and collaborative cooking. Both the cooking and eating process becomes like playing a game whilst at the same time consuming information about what is being prepared and eaten. This could serve as a great tool for educating children and adults about nutrition, and possibly contribute to healthier lifestyles.
Fashion Mediaseeks to simultate our senses by experimenting with clothing and accessories that emit light, sound, smell and reponsive touch in order to enhance our human communication experiences. Imagine if your boss wore glasses that emitted red glows when they were angry, or you had a way to emit perfume suddenly on a date, or if you trousers spoke to you when they are getting too tight. This project offers great potential to designers and researchers to incorporate such technology into the future fashion collections.
Reality Mediaaims to generate a more comfortable and enjoyable ‘reality’ through the stimulation of sensory organs and perception. Augmented reality in the case of being able to see the view from outside of your projected inside your car when backing up could potentially be much safer and more reliable than mirrors and small camera views. Avatar robots that can be used to perform repairs or even medical surgery in far off or inaccessible locations offer huge potential for both healthcare and energy industries. Imagine a specialised doctor living in Tokyo who is able to perform a unique surgery on a patient in Hawaii, or an engineer that can perform repairs on a nuclear plant whilst sitting several miles away.
Keio Media Design (KMD) is a Graduate School of Keio University (Tokyo, Japan) that offers students the chance to combine research in the four areas of creativity; design, technology, management and policy whilst engaging in these intensive ‘Real Projects‘ with their peers. KMD works closely with industry professionals, partner institutions worldwide, and has two satellite campuses in Osaka and Singapore. Keio Media Design is already becoming the launching pad for new technology and products that can generate enterprising start ups or contribute to large corporations across Asia and the globe. Driving innovation and creative approaches to technology is the key to ensuring future economic growth in Japan and across the globe.
The explosion of interest in digital modeling and fabrication technologies like 3D printing, robotic and laser cutting has resulted in a number of interesting projects, from printed Valentine’s Day chocolates to models of yourself. The revolutionary potential of fabrication has been much talked about, and now an exhibition hosted by Tokyo University of the Arts has gathered a group of well known creators who are using these technologies to explore the possibilities of digital design in architecture, design and art.
Titled ‘Materializing’, the exhibition is centred on the idea of ‘not just information, and not just materials’, and showcases an emerging form of creativity that is broadly concerned with exploring how programmability can be materially presented, whether this is in the form of images, sounds, architectural models or animations. Supported by the developments in small scale digital modeling and fabrication technologies, these types of approaches allow for a quick means of prototyping and exploring a greater number of various design and artistic possibilities.
We visited the exhibition to check out the projects on display for ourselves.
studio_01 + yakul
‘Epoch I’
studio_01 is a Tokyo and Toyama-based partnership between designers Alex Knezo and Akinori Hamada that works on projects ranging from architecture to lighting, furniture, and branding. Their designs typically use Japanese elements of design alongside digitally designed elements.
‘Epoch I’ is an installation project done in collaboration with installation design studio yakul. A small-scale environment of the exhibition space was replicated in a glass box which was connected to a computer and bags of sand.
The project placed a number of tracking cameras around the exhibition, and a program was created to visually model and map how visitors moved throughout the space. This mapping was used to gradually fill the glass box with layers upon layers of sand that accumulated in areas where the presence of visitors was greatest. Ultimately, an installation that physically and temporally records how a large group of people moved and affected the space throughout the exhibition’s history was created.
N&R Foldings + Heavy Back Pack
‘[ORI-CON]‘
N&R Foldings is a London/Tokyo based design studio that was co-founded by Rodrigo Solorzano and Naoki Kawamoto. The studio is particularly interested in digital generation and fabrication techniques, and draws inspiration from Origami.
‘Ori-con’ is the name of a software devised by the studio that automatically calculates and converts data to create customised wrappings that can be used to transport goods and gifts. Dubbed “Orishiki”, a portmanteau of the words “Ori” from Origami and “Shiki” from Furoshiki, these customised wrappings take the form of a single 2D structure made up of triangular segments that can be folded up and wrapped around objects.
Users 3D scan an object that they wish to wrap and carry, and the Ori-con software creates a mapping of an Orishiki for that object which can be designed instantly based on the data from the scan. A white control panel allows users to control a number of parameter values, such as the number of polygons or the thickness and width of each section, allowing them to easily adjust the design of the Orishiki. This design can then be exported to 3D printers, CNC and the like.
noiz architects
Located in the same office space as Mandalah, noiz architects is an architecture, design, and planning studio based in both Tokyo and Taiwan. Founded in 2007, the studio takes its name from the tendency to call new, innovative forms of music as ‘noise’, and this part of music history serves as an everyday reminder of the firm’s commitment to creative design solutions.
noiz architects’ project used 3D modeling and fabrication tools to structurally explore the Voronoi diagram, a way of recording information about the distances between sets of points in any dimensional space, which has typically been used in two-dimensional spaces.
000Lab based in Keio Shonan Fujisawa Campus’s display , ‘TPG Kit’ (Topological Grid).
Shio Imai’s ‘Trepak – The Nutcracker’ is a set of two sculptures created using motion capture technology that allowed for movement in real time to be captured and represented digitally. The trajectory of a composer’s hand was taken as data and printed using 3D printing technology.
Utilising plaster, cement, gravel and water, [gh/e]‘s project titled ‘she’ presented a way of joining one object to another.
While ans Studio’s ‘Neuro-Fabrics’ project highlighted the possibilities of the tree/wood in an era dominated by steel and glass as a material in computational design.
Tachi Tomohiro’s “free-form origami”, made from a folded 1,100mm x 1,300mm stainless steel sheet.
‘Materializing’ is one of the first exhibitions in Japan that has brought together such a diverse group of architects, designers and artists interested in exploring the burgeoning developments between information and fabrication. It will definitely be interesting to see how different groups continue to push the boundaries of what can be done with digital fabrication and modeling as the technology develops.
In this year’s Bloomberg’s Innovation Index Korea was ranked 2nd, whilst Japan came in at 6th place. Given the fact that Korean firms have made inroads in the industries that Japanese companies used to dominate such as consumer electronics, communications hardware and automobiles it is probably no surprise that Korea was ranked ahead of Japan.
However in a separate, more in-depth report compiled by INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organization, the Global Innovation Index ranks Korea at 21st place, yet still ahead of Japan at 25th.
Singapore was also ranked competitively at 7th place by Bloomberg and 3rd by INSEAD.
When discussing the innovation of countries in contrast to companies it is necessary to go beyond the overall rankings and scrutinize the criteria since innovation is difficult to quantify without subjective results.
Bloomberg’s study examines data from 96 countries or regions and ranks them based on a scale of 0 to 100% on seven factors:
Based on these criteria Korea came out well on R&D intensity (5th), high-tech density (3rd), manufacturing capability (3rd) tertiary efficiency (4th) and was ranked number one for patent activity. Although productivity was ranked 32nd which is not surprising considering the extremely long working hours endured by most Koreans as it is hard to perform well when you are always exhausted.
Japan came in second place for patent activity, 4th for R&D intensity and 6th for researcher concentration but much lower on the other criteria compared to Korea.
INSEAD’s Global Innovation Index was compiled from 141 economies and analysed five input pillars that represent aspects of the economy which enable innovation: (1) Institutions, (2) Human capital and research, (3) Infrastructure, (4) Market sophistication, and (5) Business sophistication. In addition to two pillars which capture actual evidence of innovation outputs: (6) Knowledge and technology outputs and (7) Creative outputs.
One of the tools on the Global Innovation Index website allows you to compare the results of two countries. Bellow is a graph depicting a comparison of Japan and Korea based on the criteria I selected:
The chart above supports the rankings of the Bloomberg and INSEAD reports which shows that Korea is ahead of Japan on many competitive aspects of its economy. But does this really translate into overall innovation since so much of Korea’s economy is controlled by the Chaebol or mega-corporations such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai?
Of course these companies have been successful in developing products to sell in global markets in contrast to Japanese corporations which relied for too long on the strength of a shrinking domestic market and the competitiveness of the yen.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Image via 
Image via 
