AI Tea Ceremony and Washi Stools Anchor Alter's Tokyo Return

By Marcus Bennett

The second edition of the young designers' exhibition Alter has opened at Nihonbashi Mitsu Hall in central Tokyo, bringing together 75 international creators during the 10th iteration of Designart Tokyo.

Most exhibitors are in their 20s or 30s. The show's organisers say the group is united by a desire to "re-examine the value of product design" in an industry the exhibitors see as growing increasingly rigid in its output.

Among the headline works is a "tea ceremony with no host" by the Tariki Research Institute. Instead of a tea master choosing the right cup for the occasion, sensors at locations around the world collect environmental data, which an AI algorithm translates into organic shapes. The vessels are then blow-moulded and offered to visitors to drink from.

What else is on show?

A group exhibition of texture-heavy pieces, titled At First Contact and curated by Dutch designer Tim Teven, includes a bright green vessel by French designer Audrey Large. Complete with protruding, tentacle-like embellishments, the vase is typical of Large's otherworldly style.

Nearby, Dutch designer Teun Zwets presents a wall-mounted mirrored cabinet made from his recognisably glossy lacquered split wood. Paris studio LS Gomma contributed a polyurethane rubber scone lamp with a glowing ribbed body that loosely resembles a pair of lungs.

Teven selected pieces that draw attention to "reflection, gloss and wear". "The pieces' attention to surface resonates with traditions within Japanese craft, where the effects of making, material behaviour and use remain visible in the finished object," he said.

How does Bole rethink Japanese forestry?

Bole, a project by London architecture studio Pan Projects, addresses the economics of Japanese timber. It was completed with local forestry company Morisho and Nara-based wood specialist Morisuke Mei Tree Industry.

Working with the knowledge that a typical Japanese cedar tree yields five logs, each four metres long, the collaborators cut the logs into simple discs and made eight stools from each log, using every part of the material. At Alter, the stools stand as a large totemic column to highlight the process.

"Today in the mountains of Japan, the market value of logs is below the value of the labour of the people who grow and care for them," the show organisers explained. "Even though wood continues to flow through construction and manufacturing sites, most of its value never goes back to the forest. Bole was born as a response to this imbalance."

What does Capillary Drift do with washi paper?

Japanese designer Yuma Kano, washi paper specialist Gen Taniguchi of Nao Tesuki Washi, and Kurara Omichi, an artisan at Tokyo's Uchida Dyeing Factory, present Capillary Drift. The trio is showing stools, vessels and material experiments made from delicately dyed washi paper.

"Rather than seeing washi simply as a flat surface, we approach it as a complex network of interwoven fibres, seeking to reveal expressions hidden within the material itself," said Taniguchi.

The inaugural Alter exhibition ran during last year's Designart Tokyo, when the exhibition team told Dezeen they wanted to revive the city's "increasingly homogenous" design scene. Designart Tokyo 2026 runs from 30 October to 8 November at venues across the Japanese capital, and Alter's second edition suggests the fair is building a durable platform for a generation determined to test what product design can still mean.