"Supernormal: Metabolizing Stillness in Japanese Design"
Japan Foundation, Cairo, Egypt and Tokyo, Japan, 2013
Tracing a line from the Buddhist hermit’s candle-lit hut to Sou Fujimoto’s weightless NA House, this essay unpacks how Japan turns quietude, impermanence, and everyday “super-normal” objects into design DNA. I weave together wabi-sabi’s muddy miso bowls, shibusa’s shadow-loving restraint, and the craft ethos of monozukuri and the Mingei folk-art movement, then show how post-war Metabolists and today’s space-saving product engineers translate these values into flexible interiors, floating megastructures, and roll-up dish-drainers. The result is a portrait of a design culture that prizes portability over monument, iteration over originality, and environmental modesty over excess.
Criticism & Academic Writing