Ibuku

Ibuku is an international design-build team creating a new way of living. We exist to provide spaces in which people can live in an authentic relationship with nature. We do this by designing fully functional homes and furniture that are made of natural substances and built in ways that are in integrity with nature. Best know for creating the architecturally award winning bamboo buildings at Green School, our current project, Green Village, is an innovative residential villa development located within walking distance to the river valley campus. We are a full service design company that creates one of a kind designs for both residential and commercial spaces as well as artisan crafted bamboo furnishings inspired by a timeless Scandinavian design sensibility. Ibuku’s custom furnishings have captured the imagination and heart of some of the world’s leading designers, entrepreneurs and politicians.

Interloop–Architecture

Interloop–Architecture (IA) is an architecture research practice located in Houston, Texas. It was founded in 2001 by principals Dawn Finley and Mark Wamble. The firm’s work is equally represented by design projects that function on a variety of scales and degrees of complexity, while maintaining an innovative approach to material and production solutions of the highest quality. Our clients include institutions such as The Nasher Sculpture Center, The Carnegie Museum of Art, the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI), Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Rice University, multinational corporations such as BP, and private individuals. Our writings and design work have been published in journals and news-papers including: the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Log5, ID Magazine, Perspecta Journal, Texas Architect, Architectural Record, and Architecture.

Houston, Texas is an architecturally lawless city full of promise. The climate is harsh and the economy is based upon extreme pragmatism on the one hand and pure imagination on the other. Inspiration for innovation can be found easily in this landscape. Local industry is sophisticated, and is driven by medical research, space travel and energy exploration. Our goal is to find some sort of beauty from these ingredients and when possible, export them to the rest of the world.

Isamu Kenmochi

(1912-71)
Isamu Kenmochi,one of the most significant figures in the emergence of Japanese industrial design after the Second World War, Isamu Kenmochi graduated in 1932 from the Tokyo College of Industrial Arts. Like many of the first generation of Japanese industrial designers Isamu Kenmochi was also a member of the Industrial Arts Institute (IAI) where he worked in the Woodwork Technology Department. At the IAI Isamu Kenmochi worked alongside design pioneers such as Jiro Kosugi and Mosuke Yoshitake and was influenced by European Modernist designers such as Bruno Taut, an adviser to the Institute in late 1933 and early 1934. Having been transferred from the IAI to the Ministry of Armaments, Isamu Kenmochi knowledge of materials was extended by his research into the ways in which woods could be used in aircraft construction.

After the Second World War Isamu Kenmochi made a study tour of the USA in 1952, reporting back on his experiences in the influential periodical Kogei Nyusu (Industrial Art News). In 1952 Isamu Kenmochi also became a founding member of the Japan Industrial Designers Association. Isamu Kenmochi's links with the international design community were further enhanced through his attendance at the Aspen International Design Conference of 1953. In the the same year, together with other leading designers of the post-Second World War years such as Masaru Katsumie, Yusaku Kamekura, Riki Watanabe, and Sori Yanagi, Isamu Kenmochi was also involved in the formation of the International Design Committee.
The latter subsequently became the Good Design Committee (1959), then the Japan Design Committee (1963) and sought to foster relationships with overseas design organizations as well as participation in conferences and exhibitions.
For the IAI Design and Technology exhibition of 1954 Isamu Kenmochi designed a wood and bamboo dining-chair that, like many other progressive pieces by contemporaries such as Yanagi and Watanabe, combined traditional materials with new technologies and aesthetic ideas. Isamu Kenmochi took this philosophy forward in a 1958 commission from the Yamakawa Rattan Company to produce an organic, almost sculptural, chair.
Reflecting a growing international awareness of Japanese design originality, this important icon of contemporary Japanese furniture was purchased for the design collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1964 and was awarded the G-Mark in 1966.
Furthermore, having first gone into production in 1960 it was awarded the G-Mark Long Life prize in 1982.
A further essay in sculptural form in furniture was executed for the Tendo Mokko Company in 1961. The resultant Kashiwado Chair was named after a famous sumo wrestler and was formed of blocks of lacquered Japanese cedar. Isamu Kenmochimhad, in fact, left the IAI in 1955 to establish Isamu Kenmochi own design consultancy, Kenmochi Design Associates where, in the early years he continued to work on furniture and interior design. The award of a Mainichi Prize for industrial design evidenced the continuing significance of furniture design to the company in 1963. Important commissions included the Japanese Pavilion at Expo '58 in Brussels on which the firm collaborated with the architect Kunio Maekawa, winning a Gold Medal, and street furniture for Expo '70 in Osaka, awarded a second Mainichi Prize.

Ingrid Donat

Ingrid Donat was born in Paris in 1957 into a family of artists.
Her grandfather was an architect and her father a painter.
Raised in Sweden, she returned to Paris in 1975 to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts
to pursue her passion for sculpture.
Ingrid's talent developed quickly in the artistic environment of Paris.
Of particular importance was her meeting with Sylva Bernt, the companion of Andre Arbus.
From Bernt, Donat learned the art of construction, casting, engraving,
patinating and sculpture in general. During the same year,
she met Diego Giacometti who advised Donat to design her own sculpted furniture.
Other influences were Egon Schiele, Georges Mine, Germaine Richier.
Inspiration for materials and colors come from primitive and tribal arts,
the elegance of Art Deco, and organic forms of Art Nouveau. In 1981,
the sculptor Cesar, who recognized Donat as a talented artist,
encouraged her to follow her own style and identity rather than return to school.
For the past twenty years, Donat has been creating a body of work that she only began
to exhibit publicly in 1998.
Donat engraves the bronzes, painted upholstery and treated wood.
Each piece is cast in limited editions of 8 at Blanchet-Landowski Foundry
under the guidance of the artist. Each piece is initialed by the artist,
has the foundry stamp, and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Ingrid Donat.

Donat currently lives and works outside of Paris.
Ingrid Donat website