Press Release
Yuya Nakazawa Is Honored with the Golden A' Design Award for Oruha Chair in Furniture Design
Yuya Nakazawa honored for furniture design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 25, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the Golden A' Design Award in the Furniture Design category for Oruha Chair by Yuya Nakazawa, designed for Yedit. The result belongs to the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
About the Golden A' Design Award
The Gold A' Design Award is granted to designs that demonstrate a high level of innovation and a significant impact on their intended audience. Recognized as a major achievement by the A' Design Awards, these designs are characterized by their visionary approach and the exceptional skill of their creators. Winners of the Gold A' Design Award are noted for their ability to push the envelope in art, science, design, and technology, delivering solutions that not only meet but exceed expectations. These designs serve as benchmarks for excellence, encouraging further innovation and inspiring future generations of designers.
About Oruha Chair
The design presents a seat conceived as a public secret base, offering personal refuge within shared environments. Its structure balances sculptural presence with functional comfort, supporting extended use and social interaction. Curved surfaces and carefully proportioned elements create a sense of enclosure while maintaining openness. Natural finishes enhance durability, ease of maintenance, and graceful aging, allowing the piece to integrate into everyday living spaces while preserving tactile warmth.
About Yuya Nakazawa
Yuya Nakazawa is a furniture maker and video editor whose work bridges analog craft and digital storytelling. He approaches both disciplines as ways of shaping human emotion and experience. Through global travel, woodworking practice, and personal life events, his perspective was transformed, deepening his understanding of Japanese craft values within a contemporary, international context. His work contributes to society by creating durable, human-centered objects and narratives that encourage reflection, connection, and long-term use—offering an alternative to disposable, mass-produced culture.
Award Record
Yuya Nakazawa is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.
About the A' Furniture Design Award
The A' Furniture Design Award is an international furniture competition recognizing good furniture designs by best furniture designers worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to furniture designers, product designers, industrial design studios and furniture brands from all countries. Entries typically include chairs, tables, sofas, beds, cabinets and shelves. Awarded furniture designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/furniture
About A' Design Award & Competition
A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/178435
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/178435
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!178435
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/304522
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://www.instagram.com/yedit468/
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Oruha Chair
- Function
- Chair
- Category
- Furniture Design
- Discipline
- Industrial Design
- Industry
- Furniture & Home
- Colors
- Silver, Light Gray, Dark Gray, Gray and Dark Olive Green
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Yedit
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Yuya Nakazawa
- Country
- Japan
- Recognition
- Golden A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #178435
Credits
- Image Credits
- Photography: Photographer Mitsuaki Takahashi, 2025 Video credit: Video editor Yuya Nakazawa, 2025 Sound: Soundtrack Composer Heitaro Ashibe, 2025
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Oruha Chair proposes the idea of a private sanctuary within a public space. While functioning as a sculptural object that shapes the surrounding environment, the chair transforms into an intimate personal zone when occupied. The form could not have been achieved through linear or parametric design logic. Instead, it emerged through an iterative process of continuous adjustment between visual intensity and physical comfort. The armrests, which receive the most direct contact, maintain sharp visual edges while offering a gentle and secure tactile experience. This balance allows the chair to exist simultaneously as spatial sculpture and functional furniture.
- Inspiration
- Oruha Chair was inspired by the concept of waves, representing continuous transitions between tension and release. Rather than designing a chair solely from ergonomic data or predefined typologies, this project approaches seating as an emotional and spatial experience shaped by contrast. The form was developed as a response to the designer’s belief that emotions, like waves, can be edited, reorganized, and translated into physical presence. These transitions were carved directly into solid wood as flowing yet controlled organic curves. Although the chair presents an edgy, sculptural appearance, sitting in it reveals a smooth, enveloping comfort.
- Research
- The designer’s background in video editing strongly influenced the conceptual framework of this project. Video editing is a practice of shaping emotional perception by controlling sequence, rhythm, and context. Oruha Chair applies this editorial thinking to three-dimensional form. Personal emotions and experiences were deconstructed and reassembled, not as narrative, but as physical tension, curvature, and spatial presence. The result is a chair that communicates emotionally through form rather than explanation.
- Challenge
- After extensive sketching and the creation of five clay models, translating the form into wood presented a fundamental challenge. There was no established woodworking methodology capable of directly realizing the intended geometry. Through repeated trial and error, two full-scale prototypes were abandoned before completing this third iteration. Because of the organic form, conventional symmetry, reference points, and measurement systems proved ineffective. Ultimately, the process required trusting sensory judgment and material feedback over numerical precision. This approach became inseparable from the final outcome.
- Realization and Technology
- Due to its complex organic geometry, Oruha Chair is extremely difficult to reproduce through industrial manufacturing or automated processes. The chair was realized almost entirely by hand, using traditional Japanese planes and hand tools. Rather than imposing a fixed form onto the material, the final shape emerged through direct dialogue with the wood, prioritizing tactile quality, structural integrity, and sculptural coherence. This process positions craftsmanship not as decoration, but as a design methodology.
- Operation and Interaction
- Despite its expressive form, Oruha Chair provides stable and comfortable seating suitable for extended use. Structural stability and load distribution were carefully examined through repeated physical testing, ensuring that the sculptural design does not compromise safety or usability. Unlike many sculptural chairs that discourage everyday use, Oruha Chair is intended to be touched, sat on, and lived with.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project began in Kanagawa in January 2025 and ended in October 2025.
- Specifications
- Width 740mm Depth 550mm Height 760mm Seated height 430mm
- Keywords
- Chair, Furniture, Sculptural Design, Wood, Handmade, Emotional Design, Armchair, Spatial Object
