Sakura Cyclone Table by Tomoaki Kageyama is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2025 Silver A' Design Award in Furniture Design Competition Category.
SilverFurniture· 2025
Sakura Cyclone Table
Client: Tomoaki Kageyama
Silver A' Design Award Winner in Furniture Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #164534The Design
About Sakura Cyclone Table
This is a low table made of molded cherry plywood. This table usually looks like a large cherry tree growing on the earth. On the other hand, when turning on the light, the cherry blossom blooms in a shadow and makes the space brilliant. It is a table that turns an evening into a special time. Cherry blossom is an important symbol in Japan. But cherry blossoms bloom for only about one week of the year. This table is designed with the fleeting brilliance of the Cherry blossom tree.
The Recognition
About the Silver A' Design Award
Sakura Cyclone Table is a Silver A' Design Award winner, an extraordinarily prestigious recognition granted to top-of-the-line, gorgeous, and impressive designs. Silver winners are tremendously brilliant and exceedingly creative works that illustrate the outstanding expertise, talent, and acuity of their designers. Sakura Cyclone Table is expected to be a wonderful, showpiece work that is remarkably professional and profoundly innovative. This Silver A' Design Award-winning design is a highly notable, admired invention that benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Sakura Cyclone Table is a vastly envied creation that evokes desires, introduces positive feelings, and sparks amazement and wonderment.
Where to Get It
Design Research and Product Innovation Consulting
We bring academic rigor and creative innovation to product design challenges. Our expertise spans cultural design integration, furniture innovation, and design research methodologies. Winner of the prestigious A' Design Award, we transform conceptual thinking into meaningful products.
Contact UsInterviews
Design Interview
What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
Inspired by “In Praise of Shadows” by the great Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki.
What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
The goal was to produce furniture with a delicate Japanese sense of beauty that focuses not on light but on shadow.
What are your future plans for this award winning design?
I am aiming for mass production, but I have not yet found a partner, so I am looking for furniture manufacturers with whom we can collaborate.
Grand Interview
Your innovative fusion of Japanese aesthetics with Western furniture design in the Sakura Cyclone Table is remarkable - could you elaborate on how your research into "In Praise of Shadows" by Junichiro Tanizaki influenced your approach to incorporating shadows as a core design element?
Shadows falling from objects are generally not considered. On the other hand, Tanizaki's “In Praise of Shadow” states that Japanese people have the feeling of finding beauty in shadows rather than in light. With this in mind, I attempted to express the ephemeral splendor of cherry blossoms using shadows. I chose a table, a piece of Western furniture, because I thought it would accentuate the Japanese sense of beauty.
The Sakura Cyclone Table transforms dramatically when illuminated, creating a stunning cherry blossom shadow effect - what technical challenges did you encounter while perfecting this interplay between light, shadow, and the molded cherry plywood construction?
It was challenging to achieve the desired angle at which the molded plywood was assembled to create the shadow of the cherry blossoms. I also fixed them with wires so that they could be adjusted.
As an associate professor specializing in "imagination margins" and "benefit of inconvenience," how did these research themes shape your conceptual development of the Sakura Cyclone Table, particularly in creating a piece that serves both practical and contemplative purposes?
"Imagination Margin" refers to the room where the user's thoughts can intervene when looking at or using the product. The Sakura Cyclone Table, which only appears in its original form at certain times, can be said to be equipped with “Imagination Margin”.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- This design proposal is a low table made of molded cherry plywood. The unique point of this table is the design of the shadow that falls from the table. This table usually looks like a large cherry tree growing on the earth. On the other hand, when turning on the light, the cherry blossom blooms in a shadow and makes the space brilliant. It is a table that turns an evening into a special time.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The furniture was made in a workshop in the Hida region in Japan, a famous furniture production area in Japan. The size of this table is H400 mm*D400 mm, W400mm.
- Tags
- Table, Cherry blossom, Sakura, shadow
- Production Technology
- The furniture is made of Molded plywood. Detailed mating is the key to designing accurate shadows. I created a mechanism to adjust the angle of the plywood installation with wires, allowing fine adjustment of the falling shadows.
- Design Challenge
- It was difficult to consider the configuration of parts to realize that only when the pendant light is turned on at night a shadow falls and cherry blossoms bloom. I created several scale models and conducted many experiments to check the shadows by turning on the lights. Then, I realized this idea using the construction method of diagonally mating R500mm curved wood.
- Research
- I explored the essential elements of Japaneseness in order to create a table that is uniquely Japanese. In the process, I came across the famous book “In Praise of Shadows” by the famous Japanese classic writer, Junichiro Tanizaki. Through this book, Tanizaki showed that since ancient times, Japanese people have been conscious of the shadows behind light and have found a sense of beauty in these shadows. Therefore, we designed this table based on the hypothesis that we could create essentially Japanese furniture by designing the shadows that fall from the table, which modern people are usually unaware of.
- Inspiration
- This table is a conceptual design in my lab. I tried to incorporate Japanese essential aesthetics into a Western furniture table.
Cherry blossom is an important symbol in Japan. But cherry blossoms bloom for only about one week of the year. Japanese people are fascinated by the momentary brilliance of cherry blossoms. I designed it with the fleeting brilliance of the Cherry blossom tree. - Project Duration
- The project started in 2022 in Nagoya Japan and finished at the end of 2023.
- Operation Flow
- During the day, users relax with a cup of tea or a book at the table, where they can feel the warmth of the wood. At night, they can spend a special time drinking a glass of wine on the table, which becomes as brilliant as a cherry tree in full bloom thanks to the shadows cast by the room light. We envision that this table will also used in restaurants or pubs.
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