Ryu Yamamoto
Japan
CAREER Enrolled in April 2011; Completed master’s degree in March 2014
I studied architectural design as an undergraduate, but my grasp of the act of design was entirely intuitive and subjective. At KMD, I learned not only about giving form to objects, but also about creating experiences that users can gain through the objects. I was involved in a project on ‶media furniture,” where we used research and ideas about actual living environments to carefully formulate concepts and turn them into furniture prototypes. We then asked users to make use of these prototypes in their day-to-day lives, and verified the results. This process brought me back to the core questions of design: why is it that we build, and what exactly is design anyway? I currently work as a product designer for Fabrica, the research center of the Italian company, Benetton. I have been able to show my work at Milano Salone and other international exhibits. The training I received at KMD provided me with a foundation for my design activities. I am now hard at work in Europe, and my activities are based on the understanding I gained at KMD of value of design in aspects that cannot be reached just with formative art.
(This article was written in March 2014.)