#Industry News
CondeHouse x Sou Fujimoto: real furniture in a virtual world
A new collaboration between CondeHouse and architect Sou Fujimoto sees the Japanese wood-furniture specialists bringing the 'wow factor' to its Hokkaido Rock House virtual space.
The history of architecture is filled with alternative histories. I'm not talking plans that, for one reason or another, never became realised projects. Rather, I mean resolutely speculative, often fantastical, building schemes, which, slipping the bonds of reality – with all its pesky engineering, political and budgetary parameters – allow for unbridled creative and ideological exploration. Think the polemical, 1970s collage-tastic flights of fancy from such avant-garde offices as Archigram and Superstudio, or even Italian writer Italo Calvino's imaginary voyage through his Invisible Cities.
Add to the list the latest collaboration between Japanese wood-furniture experts CondeHouse and Sou Fujimoto, which sees the award-winning Tokyo- and Paris-based architect deliver an immersive virtual space for digital guests to encounter the brand’s products in a heightened architectural setting. Fujimoto, who hails from Asahikawa – the town on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido that’s the traditional home of the country’s furniture industry and, unsurprisingly, where CondeHouse’s HQ and production facilities are located – was invited by the company’s president, Tetsuya Fujita, to turn a long-held dream of his into a reality. ‘I decided to ask Sou Fujimoto to design something “wow”, beyond any feasibility, beyond any budget or legal limits. I suggested “building” a project on the side of the Taisetsuzan mountain, Hokkaido’s highest peak, which is a real icon for the region.’
The result is the Hokkaido Rock House, a virtual, fully navigable space that marries light-filled, contemporary interiors and elegant furniture with geography and geology. A genuine exercise in place-making. But Fujimoto is keen to point out that this isn’t just digital frippery, but rather a space ‘where nature and man-made objects resonate beautifully, rather than creating a completely virtual world.’ Too much VR and nature evaporates, he says, which neatly dovetails with CondeHouse’s philosophy of letting natural materials sing via an artisanal production and crafting process. ‘From Hokkaido with care and respect’ reads the manufacturer’s brand tagline.
