KYOTO Design Lab [D-lab] will hold the Exhibition “Design Questions 4” in KYOTO Design Lab Tokyo Gallery.

The Kyoto Institute of Technology is known for its research excellence in materials and fibro science and engineering and applied biology.
For the D-lab Design Associate Programme, a young designer from abroad or within Japan is invited to work for six months in collaboration with a KIT team on a research question for which design can provide a new approach and applications.
The aim is to harness KIT’s research expertise and external networks using design innovation to address pressing social issues and underscore the key mediating role design can play in interdisciplinary projects.
This exhibition centres on two recent six month-long projects from the D-lab Design Associates Programme. They fall within Kyoto D-Lab’s Designing Social Interactions and Making and Materials themes and were initiated and led by Professor Julia Cassim.

Design Questions 4

Period: Saturday 22 June – Sunday 25 August, 2019
Venue: KYOTO Design Lab Tokyo Gallery [3331 Arts Chiyoda] [map]
Open: 12:00-19:00
Closed: Monday, Tuesday and 12-16 August
Admission free
Organized by KYOTO Design Lab, Kyoto Institute of Technology

[Works + Profiles]

Nestor Pestana
Authentic Fictions: speculative futures for 2.5D printing

How can the new 2.5D printing technology be used in combination with other technologies such as image in-painting algorithms, to imagine new and future scenarios, in relation to conservation, museology and fraud?
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If 2.5D printing technologies could print in extremely high resolution and be commercially available at low cost,what scenarios could be imagined?

2.5D printing can be defined as low-relief textured printing delivered on flat surfaces with stable high resolution colour. It sits between 2D and 3D printing, hence it’s name. The technology is currently being used in a fixed size format for a limited number of applications, such as for the production of educational materials for visually impaired people and the creation of textured surfaces for the prototyping industry. These limitations are mainly due to the fact that the technology cannot print accurate replicated textures derived from high-resolution scanned data with the same degree of resolution. Were this possible, it could potentially open a whole range of applications to meet the demands of more rigorous and scientific industries as well as opening the doors to its misuse in certain areas such as fraudulent fine art ‘originals’.
Research groups such as that at Casio are currently exploring how to overcome this resolution mismatch between scanning and printing and increase the resolution of the textures provided by 2.5D printing. This project seeks to explore what applications could arise from these developments in plausible futures. It indicates at the same time, the kind of technologies that might allow an increase of the required print resolution, and the diverse scenarios that might arise from these developments.

Nestor Pestana (http://nestorpestana.co.uk/)
Nestor Pestana is an award-winning speculative designer and multi-media artist based in London. His work is collaborative and multidisciplinary, exploring the links between science, design and technology to promote the distribution of knowledge, critical thinking and lifelong learning. His work straddles graphics, animation, interaction and exhibition design. His first degree was in conservation and restoration from the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar followed by a 1st Class Honours Degree in Design from the University of Aveiro, Portugal. He received an MA in Design Interactions with distinction from the RCA in 2015.

Mark Laban
Digital Daiku: reimagining Kitayama Sugi in a digital fabrication world

How can Japanese traditional joinery skills and knowledge inform digital fabrication methods so that they can work in tandem to enable new product iterations?
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How can materials like Kitayama Sugi with specific cultural meanings and contextual uses be reinterpreted for use in other design contexts?

This project seeks to address two current issues. The generation of temple carpenters who acquired their skills in a pre-digital age is a rapidly ageing one. It means that their implicit materials-based knowledge built up over generations is in danger of being lost, unless it can be translated to inform digital formats so that the two work in tandem. Similarly, a new generation of craftspeople untrained in Japanese traditional joinery skills will need to understand how to harness digital fabrication techniques to preserve, translate and extend knowledge of them for new design contexts.
The second issue is one common to traditional materials such as Kitayama sugi that are trapped in a fixed cultural context of use in a world where their survival and the knowledge and skills that underpin their production depend upon new design uses being found for them. By transforming this material with the aid of digital fabrication techniques, the project aims to present it in a new contemporary context and display the strengths that digital and robotic fabrication can bring to the use of a non-standard variable material like Kitayama sugi.

Mark Laban (http://www.marklaban.com)
Mark Laban graduated from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London with a BA in Fine Art and in 2016 with an MA in Design specialising in furniture. A CNC specialist, his work brings together traditional and contemporary craft through the language of digital manufacturing technology. His aim is to question what craft can mean in the digital age, and where it could be heading in the near future. Based in London, Mark’s recent work has been exhibited in London’s Aram Gallery, and his ‘Rustic Stool 1.0’ was selected as winner of the Wood Awards student/graduate designer category in 2017.