This project is to renovate an entire concrete building into a showroom and office for IaicoS, which operates Hender Scheme and Polyploid. There are a few simple, specific rules for this space. 

The first is to use raw-edged materials as they are without significant edge treatment except for deburing. The second is to use the colors of materials as they are as much as possible without color matching. The third is to treat opposites, such as craft/industrial, front/back, artificial/natural, and cheap/luxurious as equally as possible. The first two, "raw-edged" and "material color," are DDAA's interpretation of the characteristics of Hender Scheme's vegetable-tanned leather, and the third is a rule inspired by their "way of making" that we feel in their creation. 

We wanted to create in a way that resonates with Hender Scheme's creation, which are familiar everyday products such as ordinary boxes, envelopes, and simple packaging designed using leather through careful techniques. This is not only because of the rules we set, but also because we sympathize with the way they make and the attitude they take. This is why we decided to leave the bare walls as they are as much as possible. Shelves and partitions around the walls are made of raw-edged gray poly lumber to accentuate the edges. One of the glass partitions separating the office and meeting room is a mirror, and the gray surface visible from the office is the back of the mirror used as a finish. 

Since the mirror and glass are the same thickness, raw edges of both materials were joined without seals along the edges like glass. The glass and mirror are fixed directly with screws using leather as washers. The exposed electrical wiring carefully laid out in the concrete walls is also held in place using raw-edged leather. The meeting space is furnished with a glass table on legs made of steel pipes for scaffolding and leather upholstered chairs by Hender Scheme.

By the way, we found the following sentence in the book "principle" published by IaicoS after the completion of the project. "In a time when only messages that are black, white, or extreme can reach people, we would like to turn things upside down, change the angle, and present yet unseen directions to turn to in the gradations of gray. " We cannot say that a starred restaurant is better than an "aka-chochin" (an inexpensive Japanese-style pub); both offer delicious food and good times. It is just they have different concepts or ways to enjoy and look at things. We will continue to think about new perspectives and values in myriad gradations of gray in which good qualities of both opposites, such as high/low, craft/industrial, front/back, artificial/natural, etc. coexist, without being biased towards one or the other.