matt - fresh interior design

22 Aug 2005 Category: Architecture, Features, Japan

“I’m at the office!” can mean, chilling at one of the nicest, coziest bars in Tokyo, overlooking Gaienmae. Even though this was not the very first, it was certainly the most groundbreaking project of Myeong-Hee Lee, founder of matt who at that time didn’t just do the art direction and interior design for Bar Office, he literally built this place with his own hands. After completing that project, everything seemed to just fall into place…

Interview by Uleshka

Lee, how did you come up with the idea for Office ?

Well, I met Sadahiro Nakamura at a talk show for a fashion magazine about Tokyo city. We got along really well right from the beginning. At that time he was still a Salaryman (generic Japanese businessman), but he had the vision to make his own cafe and I got excited to do this. matt had to come up with a good idea for his super low budget, since we wanted to create something interesting and unique… it is called Office, because it uses a lot of office-elements, like a working fax, copy machine and office drawers… but it is actually a stylish cafe. A friend of mine built the whole interior and I helped with painting and all that. My heart and sweat are in that cafe! (smiles)

Office definitely carries this aura of meeting interesting people and starting new projects. I know a few stories of people who met at Office for the first time and developed big ideas from there.

Yes, Office is a place of meeting new chances… Since it was my first bar, I loved it so much that I just had to go there every day… My art direction for ATAK evolved out of that, for example. I met Keiichiro Shibuya there and overheard a conversation he had, about starting a label or simply doing something and soon after, I found myself directing their overall designs and creating CD- covers for them. Later on, I collaborated with Ryoji Tanaka from Semi Transparent Design for more ATAK works.

After the success of Office, you designed the cafe and gallery Sign and the restaurant Caminetto in the same building, followed by more cafes in Meguro and Daikanyama- all for Sadahiro Nakamura, who turned himself into a cafe-owner, event organizer, and the producer/manager of the boutique hotel Hotel Claska. With his firm Transit he plans to consult for new hotels in Shibuya. Matt was selected to do the interior for the hotel, that is currently built by Urban Design Systems. How are things going with this one?

Very well, but unfortunately I seem to be famous for very good designs for a very low budget (Laughs) … so I have to work very hard on this one. This business hotel has a lot of different rooms, single, double, some have a mezzonet with a bath upstairs, some have very small rooms…12 sqm! That’s Japan (smiles). Hopefully, it will be easier to get involved in bigger projects after I have completed this one.

Do you have any influence on the building, the way they are building it?

No, unfortunately…. the plan is fixed already, because it is all a very low budget project. My main part is usually the interior design, but I would actually like to be involved in a bigger architectural project, where I have an influence on the actual building. The interior is always just one part of a project- but I would like to be able to take a more wholistic approach to the project.

What is important for you, when you create?

I don’t want to design something that just looks stylish or cool. I am not interested in that. For me it is much more important to create a room that offers a lot of opportunities to experience the room from different angles. I want to allow different perspectives, a different room feeling, therefore I use flexible elements in my work, things can move around or the same object can be used for various purposes. Aiming for one fixed experience feels wrong to me, since there are so many different people, different times in the day and different moods, so the interior should consider these changing needs. I believe in experiencing a room with the whole body, not just with the way things look.

How do you get started then? How do you decide which elements make out the room?

I always try to spend as much time as possible in the space I am going to design an interior for. I walk around, imagine, think, tape proportions on the floor, on the walls (some kind of real size drawing for me), move objects around…. I try to feel the room and find what it needs to function for what it should be in the end. Eventually I have to start drawing, think about materials and use the computer, of course.

I like to think about the room, from the “origin”, meaning, I do not accept any rules or fixed standard sizes of things like the height of a table, etc. I adopt and adjust the interior entirely to the space.

The other big project you are currently working on is a show-off apartment for an Otaku in Akihabara, Tokyo’s electric town, who will be the first Asian tourist to go into space next year. Can you tell me a little bit about that one?

The project is called Akiba 1LDK, short form for Akihabara’s 1 Living Dining Kitchen. The name makes it sound like a humble little student’s space, when in fact it is a huge 300 sqm loft on the 40th floor, the top level of a newly built condominium in front of Akihabara station. It will be the new show- and playroom for friends of Dice-K (Daisuke Enomoto), who actually lives in Roppongi Hills. It should be finished in November this year.

Where is the connection to him?

GAS introduced me to him, at first. Then Dice-K saw one of my older works, the accessory shop Jam Home Made I created for the Mori Sato brand near Harajuku. The concept of this shop was to experience white-colored and clear accessories in a very calm and quiet space. Carsten Nicolai made some sound especially for that shop suiting this concept. The idea was to experience things with all senses. Dice-K liked my approach and thought I could create something which was tailor-made for him, too. He is from the Gundam generation- just like me. He even wants to go into space in a Gundam costume. We both love animation and Manga… so we have a same sense and love for things. The main concept for his apartment is to mix Wa-Fu - traditional Japanese things - with Otaku culture in a very cool way.

Which are Wa-Fu and which Otaku elements in the design for Akiba1LDK?

True to the idea of Mu, emptiness in traditional Japanese houses, the room is basically empty. The bed, for example is stored under a huge “Sky Sofa”, a huge 1.80m wide sofa, that goes all the way round on one side, right up to the window, so you sit right by the window, look down the 40 floor or enjoy the great view all over Tokyo.

I use old antique wood for the floor, I created an “Engawa” (Japanese old style inside balcony) and there are 2 big glass cubes, which are totally empty. One of the mezonettes will be turned into a traditional Japanese style wodden bath. I combine these Wa-Fu elements with white plastic for some parts of the floor, there is a contemporary sushi bar at one side of the room, where a famous sushi master will come and make sushi for parties, there is aslo a movable DJ-booth.

Oh! Is Dice-K a DJ, too?

No, he is just a Super Otaku! (Laughs) For many foreigners, it is strange to see such old traditional elements next to new, crazy, fashionable or Otaku-elements, but for us growing up here in Japan it is all one, meaning old and new are simply variations on Japanese styles.

And what is this here in the plan?

These are random stairs which serve as shelf and bench….. and table…… based on my concept of multiple use and feeling, creating different experiences within a room.

I really want to see this one, when it is done! What are your plans for the future? Is there anything big you are dreaming of or maybe planning already?

I want to design a culture centre, new media culture centre or a school - actually, I want to design a whole new system. Education is very important as everybody knows, but in Japan, the way of education is unfortunately very bad. I am interested in a new education sytem from a design point of view, where interior and exterior, media, teaching, perception, intra- web, learning are all fused into one big wholesome design.

When I did the interactive and communicative cafe-space “bit things” for the YCAM, a lot of children enjoyed that space so much that this encouraged my thoughts. Watching the children develop how to play, move things around and learn really made me want to design for children.

Of course, I could never do such a big project by myself, but I would love to direct that together with another professional group.

Wow! Big ideas for the future! I wish you all the best for that and thank you very much for the interview!

31 Comments

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   Posted by: Al Blair on December 15th, 2005 at 1:04 am

2. I’ve visted office, and having a beer there was one the best experiences I had in tokyo. Its a space that has a really cosy atmosphere, which I think is unusual for a designer bar. The pictures here don’t really do it justice, the entrance, through a narrow is passage has to be experienced and the view is one of the best in tokyo.

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