For Japanese-born, Brooklyn-based Nao Tamura, becoming a designer was a natural process. Her insightful world view and conceptual problem-solving skills were born on a foundation of family design heritage dating to the 1940s with her grandmother’s self-founded clothing line, Familia. Her mother was an interior designer and her father, an industrial designer. Following a yearly family tradition of making hand-made gifts during Christmas, Tamura has been involved in the design process since early in her childhood. Tamura defies the kind of categorization that the industry status-quo often insists upon. Her unique solutions are more than simply design and possess a rare balance of innovation and beauty.
Tamura’s multidisciplinary studio has worked with designers and brands including Artek, Issey Miyake, Nike, and Wonderglass. Most recently Tamura introduced new designs for Japanese lighting brand, Ambientec during Salone 2019. In search of harmony and balance between nature and technology, Sage was born.
Sage, a cordless task lamp inspired by nature and technology features two leaflets that can be rotated to alter the angle of the light, the way the leaves of a seedling will respond to light— precisely bending as the sun moves across the sky. The underside of each leaflet is covered with 232 tiny square LED segments—a design inspired by the beautifully complex network of veins that run across the back of every leaf. As with natural life, Sage’s surface masks a far more intricate system at work. Sage is embedded with a touch sensor, that one can adjust its light output in four increments to compliment a variety of occasions.
Tamura’s designs appeal to the emotions and refuse categorization, always evolving from her highly tuned aesthetic and sensitivity to nature and its temporal qualities. She is the recipient of numerous awards including IF Design Award, Red Dot Design Award, Industrial Design Excellence Awards (Gold), Milano Salone Satellite Award (1st prize) and more.
Sage is now available in Luminaire’s online store, you can explore Luminaire’s full collection of Tamura’s designs here.
August 2019
