"Eco" Design From Japan

awagami a-wall paper good design award japan photo

Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization is a venerable old institution that has slowly realized the value of "eco" in design. Their Good Design Award has developed into a comprehensive design evaluation system that centers on industrial products but includes products in a wide variety of fields such as the environment. I liked this years' winner: the A-Wall, made by Awagami Factory in Tokushima: a wallpaper made based on paper-making techniques and traditions that are at least 1300 years old.

Washi paper is lovely with its' own natural color but can also have natural dyes or chemical dyes:

Japanese washi paper remains an ingredient of life and culture that is achieving very high acclaim in other countries. Japanese people have devised uses of paper for sliding doors, screens, umbrellas, lanterns, string, body armor, and a variety of other tools for living. Almost all washi paper is made from tree bark, making it tough and difficult to tear. It is said to be comparable to natural leather. The raw materials are paper mulberry, paper bush, and a kind of spurge called ganpi. Since these can be planted from seeds and cultivated, they can be renewed over and over again, and have long been thought of as "the honor students of ecologically friendly recycling."

Meanwhile, Nagoya Design Week had a special Ecology Night event on October 19, with well-known panelists including Harada Satomi, Kamiya Toshinori, Satou Taketoshi and Hashimoto Yukio, who talked about topics ranging from pollution issues to HIV.