Product Design

Product Design

Tanaka’s product design reveals his versatility as a designer, moving adeptly between large-scale architectural environment and intimate everyday objects, architecture and sculpture, and western Modernism and traditional Japanese aesthetics. Product design is a natural extension of Tanaka’s architectural practice, and it provides him with an alternative forum in which he can freely explore his design concerns and aesthetic vocabulary. Through his inter-disciplinary and inter-cultural approach, Tanaka continues to push the boundaries of the creative juncture where art and utility merge.

In designing furniture and other home-furnishing products, Tanaka emphasizes the integrity of materials, high craftsmanship, and the beauty of formal reduction. Composed of a series of geometric forms that interlock with one another through precision joinery, his “functional sculpture” embodies a remarkable sense of elegance and tranquility that puts users’ mind at ease. His designs are primarily monochromatic, achieved by the combination of plain glass and highly-polished stained wood that resemble the surface of Japanese lacquer. The simplicity of his design also enables a means of efficient production, keeping the production cost affordable without compromising the functionality and aesthetics of his products.