Material thought

Traveling into the Yoshino mountains in Japan clarified something fundamental about how I think about design: the materials we live with are not neutral. They are physical, living, and spiritual matter shaped by time, labor, and intention.

 

Hirohito-san, sharing photographs from a cedar harvest fifty years ago, then setting them afloat on the river. In his workshop, he splits fresh cedar, preparing staves for future barrels.

In Japan, nearly seventy percent of the land is forested, with roughly forty percent classified as planted forest. These landscapes are not untouched wilderness, but the result of sustained human care over generations.

 

Yoshino cedar has been planted, tended, harvested, and replanted in an unbroken cycle for more than five hundred years. Forests grown for use are planned on century-long timelines: saplings set close so trunks grow straight, harvests scheduled decades ahead, and every part of the tree put to work. From a single cedar come structural timbers, floors, barrels, interior woodwork, shingles, chopsticks; one material moving through many lives.

 

What stayed with me was not only the beauty of the wood, but the clarity of the system behind it. This is a culture of building shaped by patience and accountability, where decisions are made with an understanding of their long reach. Craft, here, is infrastructural.

Spending time with families and makers whose lives are intertwined with Yoshino cedar made this way of building tangible. Foresters, coopers, artists, and builders all work within the same material lineage, using design not as expression for its own sake, but as a means of stewardship.

Horiohito-san, Miho-san, Wu, me, and our coopered wooden bowls

In a nearby village, we stayed in a small cedar house designed by Go Hasegawa in collaboration with Airbnb, situated between active sawmills and built entirely from local sugi and hinoki. Originally conceived as a demonstration of this material culture, it now functions as a shared resource hosting visitors and community gatherings and is cared for collectively. The architecture is quiet and direct, allowing the material itself to lead.

The Yoshino Cedar House by Go Hasegawa

Driving through the village, this building of end-grain “shingles” quite literally stopped us in our tracks.

I believe it is for Houei Forestry

Good design operates within cycles longer than a single lifetime. For me, that means staying close to material, understanding where it comes from, how it behaves, and how it ages over time. Even though I’m not the one building with my hands, that connection matters. It shapes how form and function come together, and it’s why I’m always trying to learn more, so the spaces I help create feel grounded, considered, and able to carry meaning beyond the moment.

Sorting cedar at a lumber yard

I’m grateful for the space to explore new contexts and cultures, and for the chance to carry those insights home to the studio in the New Year. Wishing you a safe and gentle holiday. Thank you for being here.