hideyuki nakayama designs my thread exhibition curated by eizo okada

designboom friend eizo okada curated the ‘my thread – new dutch design on films’ as part of the event DESIGNEAST, held at the creative center osaka on the site of a former shipyard. okada selected eight dutch creatives to participate in the show, inviting them to think about the design of ‘situations’ in the context of the city, starting with their native locales and expanding to a broader global context.

a thin layer of  polyethylene terepthalate metalized film stood as the floor to the fifth, temporary level

located on the fourth and top floor of the old, industrial building — a vast column free space that includes beams and trusses positioned 2.3 meters above floor level — the exhibition featured eight large screens (set up between the kingpost trusses that stand 6 meters apart) each displaying the work of the selected designers. okada enlisted architect hideyuki nakayama, who also happened to realize his house (see designboom’s coverage of okada’s ‘0 house’ dwelling here) to envision the scenography for the ‘cinema’.

my thread – new dutch design on films
video by kuroyanagi takashi

nakayama worked with the idea of  creating a dark volume that offered an optimal screening environment to present the moving pictures, but that still allowed natural airflow and ventilation through the vast space where there is no air conditioning or fan. to achieve this, nakayama created a new level (5F), made from an ultra thin (12 microns) polyehtylene terphthalate metallized film, usually used as ’emergency blankets’ to reduce heat loss in a person’s body. the heat-reflective thin plastic sheeting served as the floor of the temporary storey, reducing visible light transmittance so that almost 100 percent of natural light was shut out from the projection area. visitors were invited to enjoy the videos through openings made through the soft, billowing layer that was fixed to the edge of the structural trusses through the use of small magnets–these sagged down slightly due their own weight, resulting in a subtle catenary curve in the middle (ultimately hovering at 1.2 m above the existing floor level at its lowest point). nakayama’s intervention provided a unique experience for people, giving them the sense that they were moving through two very different spatial qualities at one time, almost as if underwater. 

in its entirety, the thin film appeared like the surface of a body of water reflecting its surroundings

a variety of video clips from 8 different designers will be projected on a number of screens for three days during this september, and when designing the space, the biggest question was ‘how to create a dark space while letting natural airflow for ventilation’ . if the windows were all covered with loads of blackout curtains in hot humid summer, it will no longer be a ‘cool’ exhibition. considering all these factors, we would like to propose our design ‘5f’ – a new level above 4f where all the videos will be projected.

view of the fourth floor with the fifth floor billowing above

horizontal view across the sheeting

eight large screens depicting the work of the exhibiting designers hung above

the sounds for the videos were  played by directional speakers set above the sheet, filtering through the openings

view between 4F and 5F

enjoying the films from the fourth floor through the apertures

general view of the my thread – new dutch design on films’ exhibition

general view of the eight suspended screens

5th floor – making of horizontal ligh shield for ‘my thread – new dutch design on films’
video by kuroyanagi takashi

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project info:

title: my thread – new dutch design on films
venue: creative center osaka
curator: eizo okada, director of s&o design / associate professor, kyoto institute of technology
exhibition design: hideyuki nakayama, architect
co-sponsor: embassy of the kingdom of the netherlands in tokyo
cooperation: the new institute
featured designers: raw color / paul heijnen / kirstie van noort and rogier arents / itay ohaly, thomas vailly and laura lynn jansen / borre akkersdijk / lenneke langenhuijsen / we make carpets / BCXSY