Interviews with Katsunori Nagai

Based in Osaka, Japan, we are an office that designs commercial facilities and residential spaces. Our philosophy is to "give shape to our customers' ideas." The "Re+" in Re+ Design Lab has four important meanings. The first is Reconstruction. We break down our customers' ideas into their constituent parts and reconstruct them into new appeal. The second is Renovation. We provide new added value with unexpected ideas. The third is Reconsider. We continue to rethink new possibilities until we can give shape to our customers' ideas. The fourth is Recycle. We proactively utilize what is available and regenerate it into a new form. Our office is like a workshop (lab) where we carefully create each and every item using the four Re's.

I believe that design is about grasping things objectively and discerning their essence.

What I enjoy most is designing spaces for commercial facilities in general, such as restaurants, hotels, and retail stores.

This is a traditional Japanese teahouse. Teahouses are small spaces that have been stripped of all unnecessary elements, but when you enter them you feel as if you are in another world, isolated from the real world.

It is a small Italian restaurant with only seven seats at the counter. The restaurant's name comes from the work "ABITACOLO" by artist Bruno Munari.

My favorite materials are steel and wood, and I reconstruct existing building materials into something different.

A beautiful space that makes full use of the golden ratio

When designing a space, we place importance on where the customer is looking. We think about the installations that will create an impact on the first impression, and select materials in the space that will draw the customer's attention to the products.

It's a lot of fun and I can lose myself in thinking for hours.

The customer's thoughts are embodied, and it feels like meeting a part of the customer.

Don't give up thinking until the end.

It's important to make sure that what you want to communicate most clearly is immediately obvious.

It's about being environmentally conscious and reusing whatever is available whenever possible.
And it's about proactively communicating environmentally conscious design to society and spreading the idea.

I feel that the position and role of designers is not considered important in Japan. However, as business grows and develops, design will become one of the more important elements. In the future, as society develops and people's hearts become richer, I think design will become something that more people want.

I haven't had an exhibition yet.

When I think of designs, I walk along the river or in the city, combining what I see with what I think about, to come up with something new and original. My source of inspiration is the traditional Japanese landscape that permeates our daily lives.

At Re+ Design Lab, we combine four techniques to create spaces. The first is concept planning. Together with our customers, we plan the concept that will be the framework for the direction of the space and the main products, and at the same time, we decide on the store name and service name that fit the concept. The second is spatial composition based on the golden ratio and the shakkanho system. Beautiful things and comfortable spaces are composed of beautiful ratios. At Re+, we combine the golden ratio, which has been used since ancient Greece, and the shakkanho system, a unit unique to Japan, to create spaces. The third is visual presentation. For the main products and locations, we combine visual presentation (VMD) with the space to provide new added value by integrating the products and space into a highly branded way of showing them. The fourth is reconstruction and renewal. We break down the customer's thoughts into components, reconstruct them into new appeal, and reflect the added value in the space.
This style was arrived at after thinking about how to create something beautiful even with a limited construction budget if you have an idea.

I live in Osaka, Japan. The dimensional units of temples, teahouses, and traditional Japanese architecture are used in my designs. Traditional Japanese buildings are simple, but have a quiet design that gives the impression of time standing still. Living in Japan is an advantage in that you can feel that atmosphere, but if it is too simple, it can also be a disadvantage in that it is difficult to express originality.

As an external designer, I also supervise and advise on designs.

I think the company needs to clarify what they want to do and communicate that to the designer. After that, it's important to work together with the designer as a team, trusting each other. It's important to choose a designer who can clearly articulate the design from an objective point of view.

First, we start by coming up with a concept and creating a brand. After that, we plan the layout of the space using the golden ratio and the shakkanho system, and place an eye-catching idea in the area that the customer sees first. We also use materials that are in line with the concept and are original.

Ceiling lighting：Bullet（NEW LIGHT POTTERY）
Table lamp：TURN＋（Ambientec）
Tea bowl：Tabi-chawan（Isigaki-yaki Pottery Studio）
Bicycle：BALLAD OMEGA（FUJI）
Chair：A 100-year-old leather chair given to me by my grandfather

During the day I create drawings and come up with designs, and after work I go to my favorite restaurant or have dinner with friends on my balcony.

Never give up on your designs. And never compromise.

The good thing is that you can see the essence of things from an objective point of view. The bad thing is that if you are too particular, you may become detached from the rest of the world.

givers gain！！

To see the true nature of things from an objective point of view

MacbookPRO、VectorWarks、Adobe Illustrator、Adobe Photoshop、Gemini、Pinterest

Drawing is the most time-consuming part of the spatial design process. We collect the results of past measurements of the time required for drawing, and understand and manage how much time it will take. If we can understand this, we can manage the entire schedule.

It depends on the project, but for a commercial facility spatial design of around 100m2, it takes about 90 days.

How do you think about things to generate ideas?

Being exposed to a variety of works and knowledge

Presidents of restaurants, retail stores, beauty salons, hospitals, and real estate companies

The fun part of design work is coming up with concepts and developing building materials. If there are 100 clients, I think it is necessary to provide 100 different ideas. Each one is unique, and 100 different pieces will be created.

My future plans include building a studio for developing new materials.
My vision for the future is to design spaces related to all the services that I use in my daily life.

I develop the designs myself, but as the scale of the projects grows, we share the design work.

We are currently designing a private lodging facility in Kyoto. Although it is a new building, we are incorporating the essence of Kyoto into the design, and we are exploring how to create a new place that can only be experienced there.

Please contact us via our homepage.
https://www.replus-dl.com/

If you are planning to do business in a restaurant or hotel in Japan, please contact us.
We will provide you with a unique space design just for you.

The name Nagisa Bakery was inspired by the image of the song "Nagisa Hotel" by Japanese musician Southern All Stars. The song has a melody line like a gentle wave, and we thought that by embodying this melody line, we could express the wave. However, since the central fixture is the part we wanted to highlight as a space, we placed it so that the gaze would not be too concentrated. These louvers express the image of gentle waves in the ocean.The spacing of the louvers represents the melody of the song, and the colors represent the musical scale. The eight types of blue louvers form a gentle gradation, and were placed to gently bring the entire space together.These louvers are an essential base material for constructing the ceiling, so the construction costs are much lower than installing new louvers. Moreover, we designed them to be easily fixed in the necessary parts.

When I was thinking about how to display the products, the client told me that Nagisa Bakery would be focusing on baguette bread, so I searched for a way to display them that would evoke the sea. I wanted to use building materials like those used at beach huts, and while looking around beach huts and outdoor shops, I noticed surfboards leaning up against a particularly eye-catching wall. At that time, I thought that if I displayed the baguette bread like a long, thin surfboard, the unusual appearance would be memorable to customers. So I thought about whether I could display it leaning up like a surfboard, and I came up with the corrugated slate used on the roofs of beach huts. The baguette bread could be placed exactly in the recessed area formed by the wave shape. Products displayed in this way were an easy-to-understand way to communicate Nagisa Bakery's brand image, and customers developed an attachment to the store.

Due to budgetary constraints, it was important to select inexpensive materials that would match the brand image. However, the beach huts, which are one of the brand images, use building materials in their original state and with exposed base materials.By accepting this method of using materials frankly, we were able to maintain the brand image. As this project was low cost, we were able to think simply about the material selection. As a result, we were able to come up with ideas for using corrugated slate and louvers on the blue ceiling base, and ultimately we were able to create a design in a good direction.

One of the challenges for the bread display to function as a bakery was not only how easy it was to display the bread, but also how to visually reflect the owner's passion.We felt that the way to solve this problem was to come up with a display that would catch the customer's eye in a way that was in line with the concept of the product.When we observed the shape of baguette bread, the main product, we realized that because it is long and slender, it looks better and is more likely to catch the customer's eye when displayed upright than when displayed flat.We thought this would be a nice and balanced combination of the owner's passion for surfing and the way the baguette bread should be displayed.This display method of leaning the bread upright gave rise to the idea of ​​leaning the baguette bread against a corrugated slate like a surfboard.

The principle is to decide the components of the space and to design based on those components. The space is clearly separated into materials to draw attention to the products, and the materials are mainly divided into blue and light beige. This represents the component "Ngisa." "Nagisa" means the place where the waves crash between the sea and the beach. The blue parts are generally lowered in brightness to represent the "sea," and the light beige parts are increased in brightness to represent the "sand beach." By deliberately incorporating low brightness parts into the space, the high brightness parts stand out, and by displaying products in those parts, it is easier to attract attention.

The design concept of Nagisa Bakery includes the element of a "beach house." One of the methods used to create a beach house is to reuse driftwood and waste materials washed up on the shore. In this project, we designed the space by reusing existing equipment and fixtures in a new way. In addition, some old wooden boards that the owner treasured were used as materials for the cash register counter, but this is in line with the design concept, so the act of reusing did not have a negative impact on the design concept. Rather, by actively reusing, we were able to further emphasize the concept. While using materials that customers have a deep attachment to, we were able to reduce overall costs, and the project was able to be implemented smoothly.

In order to express an atmosphere that is in line with the design concept within a commercial space, I believe it is important to give the overall space a simple shape that follows a regular module. If the overall space has a simple shape, it will be easier to realize the design concept you want to express within that space. It will be full of realism and more likely to reach the emotions of customers. In my design method, I use the golden ratio and the Japanese unit of measurement, shakkanho, as modules to create beautiful spaces. The dimensions of the overall space of Nagisa Bakery are formed according to these modules.

The owner's philosophy as a bakery and insurance agency is to bring energy to customers. For that reason, he wanted the interior of the store to be a comfortable, uplifting space, so he chose a bright place with a light beige base color. He also decided to display a large amount of merchandise on the central fixtures, so that customers would gather easily and the atmosphere would be lively and lively.He designed the store with the hope that the comfort and liveliness of the space would give customers who visit a little energy.

The color palette of the space was decided based on the design concept "Nagisa". The light beige represents the sand of the beach, the gray represents stones and reefs, and the blue represents the sea, expressing the melody of "Nagisa Hotel", the image song of the client's space. Eight blue colors were adopted for the colors "Ocean Blue", "Moon Shine Blue", "Morning Blue", "Adonis Blue", "Turquoise Blue", "Rio Blue", "Sapphire Blue", and "Marine Blue", and colors that evoke the sea were selected. By using eight shades of blue, a gradation is created rather than using only a single color, and it was thought that the design concept and the client's image of the space could be more visually expressed.