nendo – What if? | The Hour Glass

when I was a small kid I think the first thing that I designed was a house a small house for my pet turtle so I would

bring rocks and plans and a small aquarium I would have water but after a few weeks there was a small earthquake

then it kind of moved and then the rock was like kind of like this and my my pet turtle drowned and then he died and I

guess yes that was my first design and one of my biggest mistakes was that I killed my pet turtle I think that the fact that when I moved

to Tokyo when I was 10 I was really shocked I was really surprised about the cultural difference and I was really excited about so many things especially

the things that normal Japanese kids will feel normal I was really excited about all these things and for instance

in Japan at schools we have like four different pairs of shoes like one for a gym one for indoors one for I don't know for something else

it was shocking that there are so many different shoes that you have to wear and I thought that that was really cool in a way because it's like it's like

formatting yourself you become formatted to that scene in a way I think that way of seeing things which is about seeing normal things in a slightly different

way and trying to find something interesting from it is is a very important factor of this job

you have to see the normal world always asking yourself what if for instance like this bottle with water inside it

something very normal and something that you see every day but you have to twist the cap three times and I have to open and close and I think what if you don't

if you don't have to to twist the cap or this is something that you can drink only by yourself but what if several people can enjoy the

drink at once it links people together and all these details and segments that create this bottle I try to see it with

a question mark in my mind always asking myself what if what if what if and then in the end sometimes you come up with an

interesting idea there's two types of realities one is notional and one is physical and when you only look at the

physical reality it really narrows your mind in a way but when you look at the notional

reality as well which is if someone asks you to design a chair and you only think of a physical chair that is really

narrowing your mind in a way but when you feel that if it looks like a chair or if it feels like a chair suddenly it broadens your mind and it

allows more ideas to rise in your mind in a way I think it's it's very important as a designer not to narrow your mind as much as possible and try to

see in a broader way to have a broader vision [Music] what makes Tokyo interesting and really

inspiring is that it's never silent there's always noise in the city [Music] before any this noise is not really

distracting I think true silence really kind of scares me in a way but the fact that there's always this noise always

information flying around us I think it gives them a lot of inspiration in a way it's always about repeating things I

wear the same weight shirts like bats I tried to repeat every single thing and then I start to notice these small differences in everyday life I noticed

that there's a crack on the floor that which wasn't there yesterday I noticed something has changed slightly and I

think these small moments become

inspirations for myself in architecture my teacher would tell me to think big

from Seether the grand picture first so it's about thinking about how with the city look therefore how should the streets and the building look and then how should the rooms be designed and

then the furniture and small objects so it's always the stop down kind of way of seeing things but after I started as a designer I started thinking maybe it's

it could be the opposite way of thinking which was I can start from small teacup and then start to think about what kind of table would be appropriate for this

teacup and then after the table I can design the room and then the architecture and then maybe it could even develop into into a city scale

design as well this bottom-up way of thinking is is really helping myself it's it's always about coming up with

small ideas that make big differences I've been working on a great amount of projects the kind of linked together in

different ways it's almost like the the zodiac sign like there's all these stars and then when you connect the correct stars you see it a different picture it

creates a different story [Music]

one of the greatest moments in my career is when I met miss Teresa Miyagi one day he called me and he said I want you to

design a chair using my paper I didn't understand what he was talking about life is a little studio he showed me this big roll of the paper that was thrown away in the process of the

production of his pleaseplease collection and he thought it was a pity that all this papers thrown away and I would just cut and peel cut and peel and

then in the end it became something like a chair became cherish in a way I showed it to mr. Miyagi and then he said this is beautiful I like it and so I said

okay so I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna finish I'm gonna make a chair out of this he said no no it's the chair already it's it's done and it was very

shocking to me because when I was trained as an architect I was told that there has to be a goal and then you have

to run their self what mr. Miyagi told me was that there are several goals it's not a single goal and this this is freedom

was what I was looking for and it really changed my life a good design is is

something it should not be too complex it has to be something that's very easy to understand I feel that a good design

is something that you can tell your grandmother on the phone you just she doesn't see any pictures or any renderings she does not she has zero

knowledge about design but you just tell the idea and if she feels it's really exciting I think that is good design

when it becomes simple it becomes global I just enjoy what I do

the happiest moment of my life is I'm in my room alone with my dog and I'm just sketching and I'm thinking about crazy

ideas and that's my that's my happiest moment there's like a goddess who smiles

at you and then people who are waiting for the goddess the goddess wouldn't ever look at you but if you're focusing on something else you're working really

hard and on what you really like to do I feel that this goddess gets jealous and she comes to you leads you to success in

a way so people who are looking for a success never ends up successful but people who are focusing on what they're

doing enjoying what they're doing in the end I think he or she is very close to success

does that make sense

[Music]