Interview with Kei Kitayama

What motivate me the most is to see the expression of the clients or the end users.

I chose to be a designer.

My current design projects are small scale residential, interior for hospitality (restaurants, café and bar) and furniture design. The aim is to increase the scale of the projects to small to medium.

I am still young design myself, and I am following the advice that was written by one of my favourite architect. He recommended young architects to go out and talk to other industry people and read books that are not architecture related to broaden the knowledge.

A good design is timeless. It is a great piece of design not only when it is produced, but also after many years since it has been produced.

House for my parents

A small public building where all generation can enjoy visiting

Not to give up

Tadao Ando

Church of Light designed by Tadao Ando. I like the simple yet rich and amazing internal experience created by the natural light coming through the slot windows.

I travelled around in India for couple of months 20 years ago or so. I believe that sketching different buildings / scenery, and seeing different culture during this period improved myself as a designer.

Maybe a chef so that I can still create / produce to entertain other people.

Design is something that could make our life rich and entertaining.

My parents

Childhood experience of visiting great architecture in Japan.

Whatever the method that is used to present the idea, it is important that the presentation is made easy to understand for the client / user. As long as it is clear and easy to understand, it is not really a matter whether it is using technology or hand drawn sketches.

I have been working on a residential alteration and addition project in Australia. I am trying to create a simple exterior with rich / interesting space within.

Ultimate goal is to keep working as a designer till end of my life.

Architecture is somewhere people spend most of their time for sleeping, working, eating etc, and it has a big impact on development of people’s emotion and feeling. Architecture may only be a small component to assist better society, but it can definitely assist.

It varies depending on the size and complexity of the project.

The process always starts with meeting clients and visiting the site. The site condition and personality of the clients have a large impact on the design.

Keep learning and challenging

Design sets the trends

My design process is still manual. Technology is utilised for the presentation and the documentation stages.

Pen, paper, cardboard, glue during design stage; Rhino, 3D Max and photoshop for presentation; auto CAD for documentation.

Tadao Ando’s books and Taro Okamoto’s ‘Have poison in you’

White, Japan, Sushi, Spring

Design is my interests, and it can motivate myself when I sit down and start working on.

No. I didn’t do well in art subjects when I was in primary school.

kitayama k architects is a young architecture and interior design practice based in Melbourne. Our design concept is simple, but we also focus to create warm and comfort space for the users. Our design also respect the natural environment, which is unique for each site and each project, to provide unique design solution.

Design is a tool for me to create a space / object that help other enjoy / feel comfortable.

Residential, hospitality fit out and small public buildings

Church of the light designed by Tadao Ando. It is very simple concrete box, but the light coming into the space throught the slot window create spiritual and inspirational space.

A residential alteration and addition project

Timber and concrete

When I finally find a good design solution to a challenging design task. It is more so if I have gone through many schemes before reaching that final solution.

A design gets refined and become successful when communication between the designer and the users are well established.

A designer is responsible to respect and understand the existing society and environment before he/ she proposes any design solution to fit into the provided site. By doing so, the existing cultural reference may be retained in the same or modified manner.

The source of design inspiration differs each project. In most cases, the inspiration is from the existing site conditions and adding past experiences. Past experiences varies from my childhood in Japan to visiting some buildings.

My design style is close to purelist or minimalism. One of my mentor taught me that a process to produce a good design is to add lots of good ideas at the beginning and then refine the design by get rid of unnecessary parts. This advice still remains as my approach to the design process.

I live in Australia, and my cultural background heavily affect the way I design. Having different cultural background makes me able to mix two cultural references and introduce into a design.

Eames chair
Pop chair
Vase from Japan
Japanese tea cup
Mac

One of the positive is that we can see in real life what we have designed. Also we can develop our senses so that we can appreciate good design / products / objects.

not to give up

In early stage of the design, the tools that I use are pen, paper, cardboard and glue. Once the design is developed, computer software such as auto-cad, rhino, photoshop and indesign are used.

It varies between projects

A residential alteration and addition project in Australia. The extension is hidden behind the existing heritage house so that it won’t affect the existing streetscape. The extension is very simple rectangular form, but space within the rectangular concrete box will be interesting by use of void, connecting bridge and level changes. It is currently under the council planning department review and awaiting for their approval.

via email or phone call