Press Release
Suzumushi Tea House by Hiroyuki Shinohara Is Granted the Silver A' Design Award in Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design
Hiroyuki Shinohara honored for cultural heritage and culture industry design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 23, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Suzumushi Tea House by Hiroyuki Shinohara, designed for Craft Desgin Research Lab, has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design category. The result belongs to the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
About the Silver A' Design Award
The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.
About Suzumushi Tea House
Sounds of Suzumushi is a series of woven bamboo pavilions that reinterpret traditional basketry as inhabitable architecture. Using the Kagome weaving technique, long bamboo strips are interlaced to form lightweight, self supporting enclosures without mechanical fasteners. Digital modeling and structural simulation translate tacit craft knowledge into scalable construction, enabling forms from intimate seating to a pavilion for small gatherings. Filtered light, tactile surfaces and integrated sound create a calm sensory environment, renewing bamboo weaving as a contemporary social space.
About Hiroyuki Shinohara
Prof Hiroyuki Shinohara is an architect and scholar specialising in craft and materiality, bringing together traditional and technology-enabled making techniques for contemporary design practice. He is an Assistant Professor and Director of the BSc program at the School of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Award Record
Hiroyuki Shinohara is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.
About the A' Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design Award
The A' Cultural Heritage Design Award is an international design competition recognizing good designs that preserve, protect, and promote cultural heritage. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to cultural heritage designers, culture industry professionals, cultural heritage specialists and museum designers from all countries. Typical entries include cultural heritage projects, cultural conversation, preservation and restoration and protection projects. The awarded cultural heritage designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/cultural-heritage
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/182206
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/182206
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!182206
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/380710
- Further Information from the Laureate: http://bit.ly/3MNBVhu
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Suzumushi Tea House
- Function
- Tea House
- Category
- Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Arts and Social Impact
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Craft Desgin Research Lab
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Hiroyuki Shinohara
- Country
- Hong Kong (China)
- Recognition
- Silver A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #182206
Credits
- Image Credits
- Image Credit: Craft Design Research Lab
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Sound of Suzumushi is a 20 sq.m woven bamboo pavilion for deTour 2023 at PMQ, Hong Kong, featuring torus-shaped seating baskets (2.5m & 1.5m diameters) via Kagome triaxial weaving. Unique for scaling handicraft to architecture with embedded video of craft processes, it offers tactile rest spaces, raises heritage awareness, and integrates computational form-finding with manual execution for superior structural lightness and sustainability.
- Inspiration
- The inspiration stems from the endangered bamboo weaving craft in Hong Kong, exemplified by master Lui Ming (age 79). Motivated by the decline of implicit craft knowledge due to industrialization, this project seeks to preserve and propagate it through architectural applications, transforming traditional Kagome techniques into scalable, inhabitable structures that promote cultural heritage and the use of renewable materials.
- Research
- This design research explores scaling Hong Kong’s traditional bamboo weaving into architecture. Objectives focus on digitizing implicit craft skills for broader use and creating inhabitable structures. The methodology involves analyzing Kagome techniques, building Grasshopper models with material simulations, and testing mock-ups using Rhino/Grasshopper, Oasys GSA for finite element analysis, and strain gauges. Results yielded stable torus pavilions; insights reveal craft-digital tools propagate heritage. Impacts enhance sustainable design, societal craft awareness, and business in renewables.
- Challenge
- The toughest challenge was scaling delicate Kagome weaving from small baskets to 2.5m architectural forms, where manual techniques faltered on strip handling and wind resistance. Internally, capturing tacit knowledge from scarce experts proved elusive amid the historical decline of craft. Externally, sparse local bamboo sources, PMQ site weather disruptions, and coordinating volunteers posed hurdles. We overcame these through iterative finite element analysis and mock-ups, introducing forklifts and scaffolding for assembly, ultimately delivering a lightweight, reusable structure that advances craft viability.
- Realization and Technology
- Kagome triaxial weaving analyzed via Grasshopper algorithms modeling bamboo strip topology (10cm grid), materiality, and physics simulation (Oasys gsa fea for deflection/bending under gravity/lateral loads). Validated by 3-point bending/strain gauge tests on mock-ups. Pre-woven components assembled on-site with scaffolding/forklifts; Moso bamboo strips split to 5-8mm thickness, interlocked sans fasteners for self-bracing reciprocal structure.
- Operation and Interaction
- Visitors approach the pavilion on pmq terrace, enter the larger woven basket to sit or recline on curved bamboo seats, feeling the smooth, flexible weave. Touch reveals craft texture; inside, a video plays craft stories, evoking bell-cricket “suzumushi” sounds metaphorically. Interaction flows from rest to reflection, outperforming rigid benches by inviting sensory immersion and heritage connection in urban bustle.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project was designed and constructed from August 2023 to December 2023 in Hong Kong, with primary installation at pmq cultural complex terrace, Central, Hong Kong, for deTour Design Festival 2023. Pre-weaving occurred at cuhk School of Architecture workshops; on-site assembly involved volunteers.
- Specifications
- Site Area: 20 sq.m Diameter: 2500mm (large), 1500mm (small) Height: 2500mm Moso Bamboo strips: 5-8mm thick x 10-15mm wide.
- Keywords
- bamboo weaving, Kagome structure, computational design, craft preservation, Hong Kong heritage, architectural prototype, tactile installation, cultural propagation
