Interview with Yusuke Kamiyama

Spline Design Hub is a Tokyo-based design-engineering studio I founded in March 2015. We work across kinetic installations, product design, and research and development with academic institutions, taking on projects that cross the boundaries of conventional disciplines and media.Our core principle is to smoothly connect sensibility and technology. Hardware and software, logic and intuition, structure and experience—these are often spoken of as opposites, but we believe that is only because their perspectives, values, and "languages" differ. We see new possibilities precisely beyond that gap. The movement of thought that travels between two poles and integrates them is, for us, the heart of design engineering.We treat concept, design, and implementation not as separate stages but as one continuous process, weaving sensibility and technology together to give shape to value that has not yet been seen.

For me, design is the act of building a bridge between technology and sensibility, giving form to experiences not yet put into words.I came to design after studying many fields of engineering—programming, communications, electronics, mechanical design. None of them, on its own, could bring everything together. Design was where they all converged. So for me, design is not a single discipline but a continuous movement of thought that travels between logic and intuition, structure and experience, and integrates them into one form.

I am most drawn to design that bridges different domains—where engineering and sensibility, function and expression, have to be resolved together.Across my work—products, installations, research and development—a recurring interest is giving an artifact a calm, organic presence: making something feel considered, alive, and at ease in the space it occupies. Whether it is a consumer product or an experimental piece, what I enjoy most is designing objects that exist comfortably between the technical and the human.

If I had to choose one, it would be Footsteps of Time.Throughout my work I have been interested in one question: what makes us perceive something as alive? Not the mechanism of living things, but the extraction of "life-likeness" itself. Footsteps of Time carries that question into the theme of time. Time is often thought of as flowing equally for everyone, yet we all know how it races during joy and drags during boredom. The work expresses this contrast: a circular base, continuously connected at a constant width, symbolizes the universality of time; a machine that walks across it, changing its stride in an irregular rhythm, symbolizes its elasticity. I love this work because a question I had long carried and the theme of time became inseparable in it.

The first product I designed for a company was AGRA Light, a home moving light whose direction and brightness can be controlled from a smartphone. With presets and a timer, it lets people shape the light of a room to match the time of day.The identity of a moving light lies in two things: movement and light. So its functionally essential components are the motors and the bulb—two motors are needed to aim the light in any direction. I connected these two motors and the bulb as minimally and smoothly as possible, and gave the remaining, less essential parts the most primitive forms I could. This was meant to heighten the functional appeal of a "light that moves," while at the same time giving the object a slightly rounded, smooth, organic calmness—so that it would sit naturally in a room as a piece of interior, quietly accepted into everyday life.It was a project about turning the still spaces of our daily lives into spaces with comfortable, pleasant movement. Looking back, the interest that runs through all my later work—giving a machine a calm, organic presence and letting it sit naturally in everyday life—was already there in this first product.

I feel most creative when a difficult problem arises and I manage to turn it into an idea—when a constraint that first looked like an obstacle becomes the very thing that makes the work better. In any project, problems appear constantly: technical limits, material behavior, conflicting requirements. The most interesting moments come when such a difficulty is not simply solved, but flipped—when the constraint itself suggests an expression I would never have arrived at otherwise.

What I focus on most is identifying the truly essential part of a design and making sure it is preserved.Every project has a core—the one element that carries its meaning. I try to find that essence first, give it the most care, and let the less essential parts stay as simple and primitive as possible. When the essential is kept intact and everything else is quiet around it, the work becomes clear, and its true appeal comes through.

Pure enjoyment. When I am designing, I simply cannot help having fun.There is a particular joy in the moment when scattered ideas, technical constraints, and a vague image start to connect into a single form. Even the difficult parts are enjoyable, because they are part of that process. For me, designing is not labor—it is the thing I would want to be doing anyway.

I believe two things make a design successful: a vast inner library of references, and an unrelenting curiosity.By an inner library, I mean the sheer breadth of knowledge and experience a designer can draw from—across engineering, materials, history, and everyday observation. The more drawers you have to open, the more unexpected the connections you can make. And curiosity is what keeps filling those drawers and keeps you questioning whether a solution is truly the best it can be. A design succeeds when wide knowledge and tireless inquiry meet in a single form.

The first thing I look at is the core concept.
Before form, material, or detail, I ask whether the design has a clear central idea, and whether everything in it serves that idea. A design with a strong, coherent concept holds together even if some details are rough; a design without one falls apart no matter how refined its surface. So when judging whether a design is good or bad, I always begin by asking what its core concept is, and whether the work stays true to it.

I think the boundary between designing and engineering is steadily dissolving.
For a long time, design and engineering were treated as separate stages—one shaping the idea, the other realizing it. But the tools available today allow a single person, or a small team, to move freely between concept, computation, fabrication, and implementation. Design is becoming less a final layer applied to a finished technology, and more a continuous process that runs through the whole.
I believe the future of design belongs to those who can travel between these once-separate domains and integrate them. Not specialists confined to one stage, but people who can hold technology and sensibility in the same hand. That is the direction I find most exciting, and the one my own practice is built around.

My inspiration comes from touching all kinds of things and understanding how they work.
I am endlessly curious about how things are made—why something behaves the way it does, what choices the maker made, what structure lies beneath the surface. Handling things, taking them apart, learning their mechanisms: this is how I fill my inner library. An idea for a new work rarely comes from looking only at art or design. More often it comes from a small discovery about how something works, which suddenly suggests an expression. For me, understanding how things work and feeding creativity are the same activity.

I would describe my approach as integrating, rather than decorating.
I don't think of design as a style applied to a surface. My approach is to find the essential core of a project, build everything around that single idea, and let the parts that are not essential stay quiet and simple. If there is a recognizable characteristic in my work, it is probably this: a clarity that comes from restraint, combined with a calm, slightly organic presence—something that feels considered and at ease, rather than loud.
I arrived at this approach because of my background. I came to design after studying many fields of engineering, and what I learned is that a good result depends less on adding things than on understanding what truly matters and protecting it. That conviction—keep the essential intact, keep everything else humble—is the closest thing I have to a style.

I work with companies as a partner across the whole process, not as a contractor brought in for a single stage.
Because my background spans both engineering and design, I can join a project early—while the concept is still forming—and stay involved through design and implementation. Rather than receiving a fixed brief and returning a finished surface, I prefer to think alongside the company: clarifying what the core of the project really is, and then making sure that idea survives intact all the way to realization.
What I value most in these collaborations is a shared willingness to explore. The best results come when a company treats design not as a final decoration, but as a way of thinking that runs through the entire project.

My process begins not with form, but with finding the core concept—the single idea that gives the project its meaning.
Once that core is clear, I move between concept, design, and implementation as one continuous process rather than separate stages. Because my background spans engineering and design, I can sketch an idea, test it mechanically, build a prototype, and revise the concept itself based on what the prototype reveals—all within the same loop. Prototyping, for me, is not a final check but a way of thinking.
Throughout, I keep returning to one question: is the essential part still intact? Constraints and problems always appear along the way, and rather than simply removing them, I try to turn them into ideas. The work is finished when the core concept and its realization have become inseparable.

Never separate the idea from its making. Design and engineering should be the same continuous thought.

The ability to move between domains. A designer should be able to travel between concept, engineering, and making, and hold them as one. Specialization in a single stage is no longer enough.

I work as a team.
Each project draws on a range of expertise—materials, mechanics, electronics, software—and no single person can hold all of it at the necessary depth. We work as a studio where members with different specialisms think together. What matters is not dividing the work into separate stages, but sharing one continuous process: keeping the core concept visible to everyone, so that engineering and design are developed as a single thought rather than handed from one person to the next.

You can reach me through Spline Design Hub. Please use the Contact page on our website.
Website: https://www.spline-d.com
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