1Please give us a brief bio of yourself and your design background.
Hi! I am Atsushi Murakami, born in the year 1974 in Japan. I have over 20 years of experience in the field of design, planning, coordination, supervision of architecture, interior designing ,furniture, and graphic designing.
2What made you become/why did you choose to become a designer/artist?
What made me interested in becoming a designer was when I was working at a restaurant before all this! When I was working in the restaurant, I realised I particularly enjoyed communicating with customers and I thought to myself; what if I run a cafe of my own in the future? I could even design it myself, with my own preferred designing and architecture.
3Tell us more about your agency/company, job profile, and what you do.
My company is called "design Chill-out inc.", it is based in Tokyo, Japan. My company specialises in architectural designing and interior designing.
4What does “design” mean to you?
Design has a very broad meaning, for me, design is choosing your resources from many things and deciding on using what and how to make it a reality. Design is a solution to your problems, solving problems using the many items and resources available!
5What’s your favorite kind of design and why?
We all live in the present, so personally I like modern designs. However, I also understand that they are based on history. Hence we cannot deny that traditional design is part of us and exist as inspiration to modern designs.
6To you, what makes a “good” design?
I mainly do commercial design, and since business success is the proposition, I think that a design that achieves that proposition is a "good design."
7How did you come up with the idea for your award-winning design?
The idea came from the client's concept, the surrounding environment, and the given conditions. With the client's concept giving a clear vision and view for me to design on, I was able to come up with the idea of using discarded tea leaves to be integrated into the design.
8What was your main source of inspiration for this design?
When planning the designs, it was supposed to be a Chinese sweet store in Japan. Hence I thought about how to incorporate Japanese elements into the Japanese modern design. The good thing is, that there was an existing store nearby that had tea leaves that were discarded. I knew this was a great chance to utilise and use it in the design for the store, providing a rich aroma to the store's design.
9Congratulations! As the winner of the London Design Awards, what does it mean to you and your company and team to receive this award distinction?
Thank you! It is an honour to be judged by esteemed judges from the London Design Awards and to be crowned a winner of the awards. It is encouraging and an honour indeed!
10What were the main challenges you faced during the design process, and how did you overcome them?
Cost control is important, especially when designing a small-scale store like this. By using readily available materials rather than special materials, we were able to keep costs down, while also creating an original and special space by devising cutting methods and details.
In addition, used tea leaves were dried, crushed, and mixed into the plastering materials. Even after being mixed in, the fragrance and slight colour were extracted, and the texture was also evident, resulting in a unique finish.
11What resources would you recommend to someone who wants to improve their skills in the design industry?
I recommend going out to experience more things in life, have a look at a lot of things, and talk to a lot of designers to learn more.