shibaya at yakitate

stone lamps image © designboom

japanese design duo ‘shibaya’ (junko + yasumasa shiba) presented their works made of stone in the designboom curated show yakitate! at dwell on design 2011 in los angeles, june 24 – 26, 2011.

stone lamps image © designboom

born in shizuoka, japan, at a young age, yasumasa shiba started to work with stone in his family’s company. he was sufficiently trained and passed a national trade skill test in japan, which allowed him to pursue a career in designing contemporary stone products. in 2007 his wife junko joined him in the business, and they founded ‘shibaya’.

image © designboom

‘yakitate’ is japanese for ‘freshly baked’, and this designboom curated cultural group exhibition featured the work of eight

upcoming talents working in the contemporary design scene in japan, exploring the role of tradition and innovation,

from functional design to sculpture through their work. in the diverse fields of animation, lighting design, architecture,

textile design and craft, the young talents explore the role of tradition and innovation, from functional design to sculpture.

for the duration of the show, the participating designers delivered 30 minute workshop performances, twice a day to visitors,

giving them an up close look to their work and design process. large crowds gathered, offering a lively atmosphere.

Q+A sessions in each of these workshops were translated for those designers who were less fluent in english language.

image © designboom

in the daily workshops of the yakitate! exhibition shibaya performed traditional japanese stone craftmanship. yasumasa shiba’s quality work is driven by his skills. in this session he worked with natural stone to create one-of-a-kind lighting objects. after drilling out a cylinder of the found object (in order to create space to allocate a light bulb) they transform the remaining naturally-given form into a lamp. a round wood panel which features a cutout of a butterfly is then placed over the hole, illuminated when the lamp is lit. the cylinder itself, the cutout stem of the stone lamp is used to create a stone candle holder or small dishes. in this way all of the original stone material is used, avoiding leftovers.

shibaya during their ‘yakitate’ daily performance, demonstrating the production process of their lamps images © designboom

yakitate at dwell on design (11)