Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization

DESIGN NEWS 256

('01.12.10)

WatchPad Design

Placebo Project by Dunne and Raby

Kaoru Mende and Sendai Mediatheque

Feature:World Design Awards 2001−2002

“WatchPad” is a joint project involving IBM Japan and the Citizen Watch Company. The aim of this project is to create a world in which computers exist invisibly, as suggested by current terminology such as “invisible computers” and “pervasive computers”.
The Citizen Watch Co., has been working on this project on a global scale, including its design division and overseas basic research laboratory, with the central role being played by IBM Japan's Tokyo Research Laboratory in Tokyo.
This spring, in order to enhance the qualitative level of past prototypes, IBM Japan, in collaboration with the Citizen Watch Co., arrived at the WatchPad 1.5 project.
In this report, we take a look at the WatchPad design process, the future direction of IT devices, and the importance of design collaboration at and above the corporate level.

Generally speaking, design research is situated at the preliminary design stage as the process at which problems are solved. For instance, the aim of research is to discover a kind of gap between existing electrical devices and people. Design then follows as a process for solving problems.
The unexpected effects brought about by electrical devices and an approach allowing for freedom of use end up being regarded as misuses outside the scope of manuals. But in reality, devices are constantly realizing functions not imagined by the producer in the context of everyday life. The design unit Dunne and Raby (Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby) refer to this unofficial quality as the “secret life of electronic products”. The relationship between electrical devices and people is constantly unfurling on an individual basis behind the curtains. Research thus needs to be carried out if anything after the design stage.
Their design research activities indicate certain possibilities for experimental and critical product design. Their most recent project, entitled “Placebo”, is intended to be a realization of this approach.

Architectural lighting at the Sendai Mediatheque is somewhat different from that designed by Kaoru Mende for the Tokyo International Forum, in which the light environment, which gets warmer and gentler on the eyes as the lighting intensity decreases, emphasizes the enormous roof, with its upper section shining in white. The design is full of variety and has an overtly narrative content. On the other hand, in the case of the Sendai Mediatheque, there is no trace of any such lofty conception. The fluorescent lights and the metal halide lamps do not reflect anything at all and merely give rise to a uniform and flat space. There is no particular point to the vertical relationships employing different colors on each floor, and they are treated merely as the ingredients of a sandwich. Mende says of the Tokyo International Forum that he sees it as an anthology of everything that had been dreamt up in the field of architectural lighting during the 20th century. The design of the lighting for the Sendai Mediatheque moves slightly away from this concept, suggesting possibilities for how architecture might be able to transcend the modern.
In this report, Eizo Okada looks at what Kaoru Mende, who was responsible for designing the lighting of this building, has been trying to achieve in his work on this occasion.

The World Design Awards are planned every year on the basis of worldwide surveys conducted independently by Design News.
This is the eleventh occasion on which this event has been held. Seventeen Good Design Awards were presented to submissions from twelve countries.
In this special feature we take a look at the main prize-winning works that won the 17 design prizes and introduce some of this year's topics.