These beautiful objects are by Japanese industrial designer Mikiya Kobayashi, and I really want to touch them. First off, his Wakka magnetic key holder:
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
Shockingly, the ring isn’t a welded bar bent into a circle; it’s been machined out of a billet in a single piece.
His Marubo key holder looks similarly tactile:
I suppose that with both of these, you’d eventually wind up with a bunch of dark scratches on the sheetrock beneath the mount. Hmm.
His Oha shoehorn is modeled after a bird. While the outward-facing surfaces have been mirror-polished, the interior of the ring retains the rough feel of the casting.
These Uki Hashi (hashi is Japanese for “chopsticks”), I want to touch not for their tactility, but to see whether they actually work:
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
The idea is that they’re cambered so the tips don’t touch the table, meaning you don’t need a chopstick rest. So I’m curious as to how easy these are to actually use; do you have to futz with them to determine the directionality before setting them down, and how carefully do you have to place them to avoid the tips touching the table?
Lastly, this Mov prototype for a beach stool. The idea is that you drive it into the sand by placing your foot in one of the holes:
It’s such a weird, specific, potentially satisfying object.
Kobayashi’s got quite the varied book. Check it out here.
Source: core77