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Interview with Mitsuharu Kojima |
Home > Designer Interviews > Mitsuharu Kojima |
Editor Frank Scott (FS) from DesignPRWire has interviewed designer Mitsuharu Kojima (MK) for A’ Design Award and Competition. You can access the full profile of Mitsuharu Kojima by clicking here.
FS: Could you please tell us more about your art and design background? What made you become an artist/designer? Have you always wanted to be a designer?
MK: When I was fourteen, I encountered a brilliant work of a famous Japanese architect. His work gave me a great shock and has inspired me to be an architect. The vivid experience gave me a great insight of what is an influence of design to human beings, splendid cultures, and history of expression of the system and so on. I considered that the design may motivate people to do something new or lead to bad direction of our lives. Thus, I considered that my mission was to indicate innovative design that would lighten the whole society of human culture.
FS: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
MK: Mitsuharu Kojima Architects is led by Mr. Mitsuharu Kojima, who has been mainly working in Japan. The three concepts of Mitsuharu Kojima Architects are as follows. 1) We focus on the mind of people. That is changing flexible while touching changeable things of nature. And we bring out the beauty of changeable nature to best effect, including light, wind, cloud, fog, and all of which get right to the mind of people. 2) We find multiple new ways to enhance the quality of interactions among people, and we make every effort to bright up the areas where buildings are. 3) We work to let users to recognize their identities so that getting deep insights into their lives. Based on these concepts, they construct innovative designs for the future that is named by them as Embracing Architecture. We redefine the existing notion and phenomenon inductively. In other words, we resolve one module, and analyze the interactions relatively between each factors of the whole design, nature, and the residents. Our buildings with charm that beyond abundant of simplicity is enrich hearts of people.
FS: What is "design" for you?
MK: Design is the light.It is the act of illuminating life itself.Illuminating the birth of life.Illuminating to live life, to light up.Illuminating life that is getting lost.Illuminating to light up so that life is not frightened by fear.Illuminating to light up to find out what life is like.Illuminating dying life.And also, illuminating to create a new life.It exists to live to connect to next life in the future.Thus, I consider that the greatest design is the act to brighten and enrich minds of people.
FS: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
MK: I feel that something worth has a possibility to break the prejudice of us, for example, the glass can be an object used for drinking water or for keeping flowers such as a vase.
FS: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
MK: I am fascinated at Japanese print engravings “Ukiyoe”, I impress not only the fabulous techniques and methods of the expressions, but also, moreover those factors, the engraver focused on describing the lives of the people vividly, which fit the period.
FS: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
MK: We design the house that was renovated by a son. The house was taken over from his father. The son requested us to remain his father’s favorite Japanese room and change the designs of other rooms, so that he would feel the warmth of fathers mind. I came to know that I could to hand the feelings by create the design which I focused on mind of residents. This experience gave me the inspiration of Embracing Architect.
FS: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
MK: I always look for new materials that can give different inspirations to people. I choose them with regard to the ways of using or various purposes of users. Especially, I consider the texture and the ways of conducting the heat of materials.
FS: When do you feel the most creative?
MK: Although when I’m alone, I can feel the warmth from somebody.
FS: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
MK: We focus on reconstructing the existing concepts to convert the vision from the past to the future.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
MK: When I come up my new design, I feel that I get excited like a little boy who realized new ways of playing.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
MK: I will be inspired to embrace the architect that I created, and feel like to enlighten our society, including users and neighbors.
FS: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
MK: I consider whether my design is a user’s feeling- centered frameworks or not, or whether it will enhance the quality of interactions between users and houses.
FS: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
MK: A designer is the person who has the great responsibilities to the society and the environments.
FS: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
MK: The origin of my inspiration is emotions of humans. It is generated through the process of understanding the feelings of interactions among the people or between the people and buildings. My creativity is brought up by the solutions of collision of the contradiction.
FS: How would you describe your design style? What made you explore more this style and what are the main characteristics of your style? What's your approach to design?
MK: Our design style is the Embracing Architecture that characterized in creating the architecture that will give the feelings residents who can talk with them. The approach to the Embracing Architecture is beginning from searching the possibilities that the buildings can be a human who gave the user the warmth of feelings.
FS: Where do you live? Do you feel the cultural heritage of your country affects your designs? What are the pros and cons during designing as a result of living in your country?
MK: Japanese traditional houses rather than cultural heritages influenced me. Thus, I came to imagine an architectural design based on the inspiration from them, which gradually links to inner space and outer world. In other words, they introduced the environment, because our ancients are agricultural people. They created the lifestyle that connected to nature and people.
FS: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
MK: We consider that it is very important to change our world to a better place. One positive design generates various positive changes. Our design exists to bring the world to the next stage and enlighten the people’s lives.
FS: What is your "golden rule" in design?
MK: To shorten the distance of minds among people.
FS: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
MK: What does Embracing Architecture mean?
FS: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
MK: We’d like to design the architect that will embrace many people. We have been looking for clients who sympathize with our designs, and wish to build such a things as assembly facilities, and a church.
FS: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
MK: I develop my own design.
FS: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
MK: I’d like to introduce my next works, including an unfinished assembly facility, which is practically finished by filling the people or a house with a feeling like living in a small gate.
FS: How can people contact you?
MK: You can contact us by e-mail and website of our company.
FS: Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to interview you.
A’ Design Award and Competitions grants rights to press members and bloggers to use parts of this interview. This interview is provided as it is; DesignPRWire and A' Design Award and Competitions cannot be held responsible for the answers given by participating designers.
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