Danielle Demetriou

6 days ago | wallpaper.com | Danielle Demetriou

'Children don’t need to be told how to play – an object just has to catch their attention and make them excited to play, without conscious thought,' says Naoto Fukasawa. 'I’m trying to help kids be creative by letting them find their own way to play.'The legendary Japanese designer is sharing his thoughts on play while seated on a chair perhaps unlike any other he has designed during his decades-long career: it’s tiny in size, tomato red in colour and has smooth, simple curves.

6 days ago | wallpaper.com | Danielle Demetriou

Modern baskets. Seamless paper screens. Forest lights. Temple-inspired chairs. Purist bathtubs. A micro-house. Rippling tatami wall panels. And a washi-wrapped church interior. The presence of Japanese design was threaded across the creative spectrum at this year’s Salone del Mobile and Milan Design Week, with countless projects in the spotlight – from furniture and lighting to tea caddies and manifesto homes. Here are some highlights.

1 week ago | wallpaper.com | Danielle Demetriou

Welcome to Osaka Expo 2025. It’s a microcosm of the world contained in a giant wooden ring – a parallel universe, where experimental architecture, futuristic innovations and an optimistic spirit of possibility strive to outshine the complexities of modern times, from trade tariffs to global unrest.

1 week ago | wallpaper.com | Danielle Demetriou

Tension. Movement. Harmony. And a moment in time. These elements are written into the lines of a circular sculpture, a twist of bronze, oak and light-reflecting gold that appears to hover in the air. A new creation by Irish artist Joseph Walsh, Magnus Rinn is designed to coexist with the sky, wind and natural light – and in Japan, it’s on track to become an enduring symbol of his homeland’s contemporary creative heritage.

1 week ago | wallpaper.com | Danielle Demetriou

Faye Toogood is surrounded by a cacophony of roses. These are not the dozens of varieties of roses that she grows in her much-loved garden in the English countryside. Instead, the roses around her inhabit a different cosmos: they are swirling and dynamic, abstract and dripping, vividly layered in visceral pinks and infused with a wild-edged freedom – and she is spontaneously hand-painting them, one by one, on to porcelain in a ceramics studio in Nagoya, central Japan.