Gold Furniture Design · 2023
Mass Series Sumi Limited Furniture
by Canuch Inc.
- A' Design Award 2023 Gold Winner in Furniture Design
- Awarded April 15, 2023
- CLIENT: Fil Studios
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 225,208
- Verification code 87AFCF102B · Verify this award
About Mass Series Sumi Limited Furniture
Mass Series Sumi Limited is a furniture collection that includes a dining chair, a lounge chair, a coffee table, two stools and a coat hanger. Each piece combines a steel frame with generously planed cedar taken from old trees. The cedar is charred by a traditional method that improves durability and brings out defined grains, creating a glossy black surface with a rare texture. The dark finish refers to Noyaki, the grassland burning of the Aso area, where people and nature live together. The series is limited to 25 units per year.
CANUCH's Mass Series Sumi Limited Furniture collection represents a distinguished contribution to contemporary furniture design, embodying principles of material restraint and formal clarity that position it within the broader tradition of thoughtful craft-based practice. The series appears to draw upon aesthetic philosophies that privilege honesty of construction, where structural elements remain visible and celebrated rather than concealed, while simultaneously achieving a refined elegance through careful proportion and surface treatment. The consistent application of darkened tones across diverse materials—metal, wood, textile, and ceramic—creates a cohesive visual language that suggests intentional meditation on the interplay between industrial precision and organic warmth. Each piece within the collection demonstrates considered attention to the relationship between frame and surface, between support and supported, with the skeletal metal armatures of the seating pieces serving both structural and expressive functions. The low coffee table's crossed stretcher base echoes this transparency of construction, while the solid geometric forms of the stool and container introduce complementary density. Technical accomplishment manifests in the precision of joinery, the consistency of finish, and the thoughtful resolution of transitions between materials. The collection seems to explore questions of domestic ritual and spatial intimacy, proposing furniture not merely as functional apparatus but as companions to daily life that reward sustained attention. Viewers might consider how the deliberate chromatic restraint invites focus upon form, proportion, and the subtle pleasures of well-crafted objects that age gracefully within lived environments.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The series uses steel frame and generously planed-down cedar. What makes this series so special and profound is that the best part of old cedar trees is used and prepared by skilled woodcraft men. Clean-cut design with smoothly planed cedar and elegantly prepared steel frame urges you to touch and feel it.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Dining chair W590mm x D670mm x SH420mm x AH610mm
Lounge chair W605mm x D680mm x SH365mm x AH510mm
900 Coffee table W900mm x D900mm x H450mm
Handle stool W380mm x H450mm
4Leg stool W380mm x D380mm x H450mm
Coat Hanger W450mm x D450mm x H1600mm - Tags
- Furniture, Kumamoto, FIL, FIL STUDIOS, MASS Series
- Production Technology
- Unique texture created by charred cedar
It is a traditional method to charred cedar to make durable furniture. The process involves skills and experience to bring out cedar defined grains just right. This is what produces the unique texture and rare finish to the furniture. - Design Challenge
- Charred inky black represents the culture
Cedar is charred to gain glossiness and organic feature with defined grains. Charred colour reminds us of noyaki. It represents Aso history and beauty of harmonic lifestyle with nature.
Unique texture created by charred cedar
It is a traditional method to charred cedar to make durable furniture. The process involves skills and experience to bring out cedar defined grains just right. This is what produces the unique texture and rare finish to the furniture. - Project Duration
- The project started in April 2019 in Kumamoto and finished in July 2020 in Tokyo Japan, and was exhibited in Designart Tokyo in 2020.
- Operation Flow
- Sumi limited is designed to express the unique Aso experience, where people and nature co-exist and press on together in a majestic yet harsh volcanic environment, along with the seeds of life sprouting from the inky black world of Noyaki. This series is limited to 25 units sold annually. The number is based on the 25 Oguni cedar saplings which were granted in the Edo period to grow forests.
- Research
- Brand is based in Minami-Oguni, Kumamoto prefecture. Minami-Oguni is a town located to the north of Aso caldera which has an active volcano to this day. Aso caldera is internationally famous and about 50,000 people call it home. Rather than just making products, Brand came about with an ambition to protect and preserve the landscape and natural resources that communities cherished and harness it for future generations.
- Inspiration
- Sumi limited is designed to express the unique Aso experience, where people and nature coexist and press on together in a majestic yet harsh volcanic environment, along with the seeds of life sprouting from the inky black world of Noyaki.
- Image Credits
- Main Image #1 Photographer：Kenichi Aikawa
Optional Image #1 Photographer：Kenichi Aikawa
Optional Image #2 Photographer：Kenichi Aikawa
Optional Image #3 Photographer：Kenichi Aikawa
Movie : Haruki Anami
Optional Image #4 Photographer：Kenichi Aikawa - Patents
- Copyrights belong to FIL, 2022.
Colors of Mass Series Sumi Limited Furniture
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