ADF Milano Salone Design Award 2021 announced its winner, Takuto Ohta who amazed the judges with his outstanding piece, " '～' - Rethinking the Obvious".

In our daily lives, we take many things for granted, including how objects are related to us. Aren’t we convincing ourselves that we fully understand what objects and things surrounding us are made to do or how their forms are designed to fit their functions? The proposal of this presentation is to make people rethink about the ordinary usage and the feel of the material of things. By doing so, we may be able to change our ways of living.

"〜" is an object that blends into space and makes something happen. It reacts to the air movement or vibration. It shifts itself to make a relationship with other things. Its contour creates an image with its surroundings that can be deceptive or misleading to our brains and disappears. The  invisible " ~ " exposes the texture of the object it is in contact with and discloses pieces of information from the unconscious sea of memory. This forced transition from “seeing” to “understanding” is a cue for us to rethink about true meaning of words or fundamental role of shapes and forms. The unrealistic phenomenon happening before our eyes rejects a stereotypical idea and the disclosed  information gradually penetrate our minds. A brand new relationship starts to build up between an object and a man. 

The aim is to cut out an action, to visualize the quality created from a human-thing relationship. A man takes an action. The action is observed from a comprehensive and various viewpoints. Take an example, what do we feel or think when we hear a sentence “a man is putting a glass on the table “? Or when we see a man in action? Won’t we conclude the series of information in this action by adding up the symbols such as “a man’” + “a glass” + “a table” + “to put” ? Aren’t we satisfied to have understood the action despite there are other information attached to it?

”～" is made up of coiled snappies of hard steel wire attached to the back of a snare drum. The coils interlock with each other and no glue is used. The shape is based on polygons (truncat­ed icosahedron) commonly found in virus­es and atoms in order to withstand the en­vironmental load.

Membranes exist to receive external influ­ences. When touched by wind or light, the whole thing shimmers and shakes like a living thing. It will establish its existence as an object and wander somewhere without depend­ing on humans.

Youtube: Work introduction video available.

Judge critique

The point which it starts with a fundamental definition which we usually don’t’ think about, and concluded with a logical approach to the theme was highly evaluated.  Excellent design, high functionality, and the unique usage of material all lived up to the assignment theme.

Judge: Kota Bando

Takuto Ohta Personal Profile

2017 04　Musashino Art University graduated

2019 04~ Tokyo Art University Master

2020 04~ Musashino Art University IIC INT  Teaching Associate

Works as a design unit "DECO".

<AWARD>
2014　Asia award＿selected
2015　Milano salone＿zone tortona
2015　Asia award＿semi grandprix 2016　ICFF＿in NYC
2017　Milano salone＿ikea＿booth
2018　Plastic＿design＆story award＿selected
2019　Wood furniture competition＿silver award 2019　Comit colbert award＿grandprix
2019　Panasonic sports change makers＿slected