Six of the most exciting projects at Designart Tokyo 2025

The annual Designart Tokyo festival featured a huge variety of designs from a steel tea room to a rocket-fuel-tank speaker. Here Cajsa Carlson selects six of the best from this year's event.

Works by emerging creatives mixed with pieces by more established names at Japan's Designart Tokyo, which is one of the country's largest art and design festivals.

This year, a new 1,145-square-metre gallery space was unveiled in Shibuya, central Tokyo, which contained the main Designart Tokyo exhibition.

But visitors could also explore design in more unusual venues, including rooms underneath one of the city's many railway lines and basements in office buildings not usually open to the public.

Below, Dezeen selected six of the most interesting projects at Designart Tokyo, ranging from collectable design and intriguing pieces by young creatives to furniture and larger installations.

Jokei – Scene (or Memory), by Yoshiaki Kanamori

Architectural shapes informed the work of designer Yoshiaki Kanamori, who was one of a number of young designers taking part in an exhibition for those under the age of 30.

Together, they showed their projects in a maze of spaces underneath a railway line.

Kanamori turned stairs into lamps and window grills into a lighting installation for his Jokei – Scene (or Memory) exhibition, which aimed to preserve scenes of daily life in Japan and give a glimpse of what its typical architecture is like from memory.

SEN-AN, by Grandir + Yuzo Kosaka with Yushi Tanaka, Yoshiki Ichikawa, Ayaka Hagiya and Hiromi Sato

Described as a "spatial experiment that reconstructs the traditional culture of the tea room," the intriguing SEN-AN exhibition showed a tea room constructed from light-gauge steel (LGS) that was rusted in places to draw attention to the passing of time.

Built to fit the measurements of the traditional tatami mats that normally cover tea room floors, the container-like installation was created by lead designer Yuzo Kosaka for construction company Grandir Inc's Mitate project.

The resulting pavilion had a tactile, peaceful feel that contrasted its industrial materials.

Kizashi – From Error to Mirror, by Natsumi Komoto

Designer Natsumi Komoto's striking sculptures and furniture were on show, together with sketches and graphic designs by her, at the offices of Tokyo company Sync.

Komoto's Kizashi pieces were made from aluminium that the designer had polished and melted to create a variety of different patterns and textures, giving the metal an "unexpectedly soft nuance", according to her.

The sculptural objects had a playful feel, while also showing Komoto's expert craftsmanship skills.

Debris Rocket Tank Speakers, by Nomura and &Space Project

Constructed from a rocket fuel tank that has been split in two, the aluminium alloy Debris Rocket Tank Speaker was part of the Designart Gallery group exhibition.

It has a cylindrical shape, a triangular antenna made from grass fibre that amplifies the sound and a decorative sphere that helps the sound radiate.

The striking speaker was designed to be omnidirectional, meaning you can't tell where the sound is coming from, in reference to the way that the lack of gravity confuses directions in space.

Buy Method, Keep Becoming, by Nomadic

Design collective Nomadic's Buy Method, Keep Becoming exhibition showcased not just pieces by three of its designers – Itaru Shinagawa, Takumi Fukushima and Shohei Kasamatsu – but also their packaging, which was used by commercial carriers to transport the pieces to the venue.

The designs, including Shinagawa's slip-moulded storage containers, Kasamatsu's paper lamps and Fukushima's bench, were transported in cardboard that Nomadic had scored with a grid of slits, allowing the collective to reconfigure it into many shapes.

These cardboard sheets were then shown as part of the exhibition, underlining the relationship between the aesthetic and practical aspects of design.

Primitive and Adorable, by Shinya Yamamoto

Designer Shinya Yamamoto showed his"primitive and adorable" Turn lounge chair, Clamp side table and shelf and Trio stool at the Designart Gallery in Shibuya.

Made from wood and glass, their colourful designs and friendly shapes drew the attention of many visitors. The playful furniture pieces also featured distinctive joinery and were created to celebrate "an endearingly clumsy beauty," Yamamoto said.

Designart Tokyo took place across Tokyo from 31 October to 9 November. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

The post Six of the most exciting projects at Designart Tokyo 2025 appeared first on Dezeen.