Future Antique Chandelier is a prototype of the future hardware design, sustainable and future electronics of an heirloom. It is an innovative chandelier designed by Saki Hayashi, who is a 3D/UX designer passionate about creativity and enriching the human experience in a space. The chandelier she has designed looks right out of a Sci-Fi movie. What makes it truly remarkable is that whenever the user turns On/Off the switches and use different modes, one of the strips are oxidized automatically for a short time. So basically, as it ages, it traces the users’ existence according to the data they create whenever they use the smart chandelier.
We go in touch with Saki Hayashi to know about this amazing product and how she brought it to life. In this candid interview, she also talks about her new business plans in the USA.
Interviewer: Give us a brief about your background?
Saki Hayashi: I was originally trained as an architect I studied and worked both in Tokyo and London obtaining postgraduate Diploma and RIBA Part I and II (architect license) at Architectural Association School of Architecture and Adjaye associates. With my strong passions about technology, I gained the third degree at NYU’s ITP where I learned creative technology such as electronics and programming. I applied the skill sets when I worked in fabricating chandelier, developing a table light, the lighting patterns, and a solar-powered mobile information booth at Governer’s Island at StudioKCA as well as working as a UX consultant, and an architectural designer. I am also studying full-stuck web programming and currently building a language learning app and my company’s website.
Interviewer: What inspired you to become a designer?
Saki Hayashi: I had a chance to act in a movie called ‘Love Letter’ directed by Shunji Iwai when I was 14 years old, and when I saw his beautiful drawings, I became interested in art and design rather than appearing in it. Since then, I studied, drew, and painted every day at my schools. It was part of my life. I read books, magazines and visited art and design stores regularly by myself always. A big perspective change happened when I visited Antonio Gaudi’s architecture in Barcelona. His spatial design created a blissful joy to physically be there and this was the opposite of the modern architectural development that prioritizes our vision through pictures and drawings.
Interviewer: What is the story behind your new futuristic chandelier design?
Saki Hayashi: There is a kind of archival practice called “Past Book” in Japan. In Buddhism in Japan, a monk writes an ancestry of a family on a notebook. My mother found such a beautifully crafted tome from my step father’s drawer and she cried.
He shouldn’t have had it, because he was an orphan but created one for himself. We realized why it was very important – he wanted some kind of proof and reminder that he belonged to a family.
The book does not change the reality that he lost his father when he was a baby, and that his mother couldn’t raise him, but this object bonded his fragmental memories of his parents and gave him stronger connections to his family tree. I believe this is why mementos, heirlooms, graves, and monuments are important for us they evoke powerful feelings of identities and connections for humans. However, Tech products are designed to only look best when they are new, and be replaced when they are superseded, carrying little to no identity to time in our life experience. I wanted to create a smart home paradigm that solves this little noticed, but endemic problem in our digital age.
Interviewer: Tell us something about your other projects?
Saki Hayashi: I also created smart architectural blocks that memorize past play in order to digitally represent past events. It’s exhibited in the history museum at BLDG92 in Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York. It allows users to create an entire city in the virtual space through nine physical blocks.
Interviewer: What are your plans after moving to the USA?
Saki Hayashi: Smart Home industry has recognized that consumers do not understand the value propositions of their products so I am building an educational platform that teaches us how to live with Smart Home products starting from blogging/media format, yet expanding to consultation, and design business by producing short animations and videos in a new format in our digital age.
Video Link: http://player.vimeo.com/video/127662190
Media Contact
Company Name: MusicofSnow
Contact Person: Saki Hayashi
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website: musicofsnow.io