Unfolding A Nakagin Story Affiche Journal by Yang Tian

Unfolding A Nakagin Story Affiche Journal by Yang Tian is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2025 A' Design Award de Fer in Design Graphique Competition Category.

FerGraphisme· 2025

Unfolding A Nakagin Story Affiche Journal

by Yang Tian

A' Design Award de Fer Winner in Graphisme Category

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The Design

About Unfolding A Nakagin Story Affiche Journal

Pour redéfinir la modernité japonaise d'après-guerre, Kisho Kurokawa, le plus jeune membre du groupe Métaboliste, imagine l'habitat moderne comme des cellules individuelles. Elles se déplacent, digèrent, croissent et se dégradent, façonnant une nouvelle société où les gens ne vivent plus dans un espace fixe. Unfolding a Nakagin Story utilise le journal comme médium pour documenter et étendre cette imagination métaboliste, à travers le dépliage pour construire une histoire urbaine.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award de Fer

Unfolding A Nakagin Story Affiche Journal est lauréat de l'A' Design Award de Fer, une reconnaissance prestigieuse décernée à de bons designs qui répondent aux exigences professionnelles et industrielles attendues de créations bien conçues. Les lauréats Fer démontrent la grande compétence, la haute spécialisation, la compréhension experte et la capacité créative de leurs créateurs. Unfolding A Nakagin Story Affiche Journal est censé être une création très estimée, admirée et chérie, pratique et innovante. Ce design lauréat de l'A' Design Award de Fer intègre les meilleures pratiques de l'industrie et présente des caractéristiques techniques compétentes associées à un savoir-faire et à du talent. Unfolding A Nakagin Story Affiche Journal est respecté pour sa rigueur et est conçu pour apporter des améliorations de la qualité de vie qui contribuent à faire du monde un monde meilleur.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: To re-identify Japan’s Modernity after the war, Kisho Kurokawa, the youngest Metabolism group member, imagines modern housing as individual cells. They move, digest, grow, and decay, informing a new society where people no longer live in a fixed space. Unfolding a Nakagin Story uses the newspaper as a medium to document and expand this Metabolism imagination, through “unfolding” to fabricate an urban story.
Dimensions & Packaging: Cover: 8" X 12"

Newspaper: 16" x 24"
Tags: Nakagin, Metabolism, Heritage, Housing, Urbanism
Production Technology: Graphics are done in Photoshop and Illustrator, the architecture is modeled in Rhino with a grasshopper plugin to change patterns and orientation.
Design Challenge: How can we capture the concept of Metabolism, where buildings can grow and shrink over time? How should I identify individual differences while the building comprises the same rectangular blocks? These are the two biggest challenges I need to solve. By using newspaper as the medium, one can feel the growth through unfolding the paper. One can also read individual stories despite repeating units by showing the interior information of selected blocks.
Research: Focusing on post-war Japanese architecture, Metabolism was the most influential architectural movement from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Kisha Kurokawa changed the Western design ideology of FORM (ETERNAL) based living style to TIME (CHANGING) based living space. The Nakagin Capsule Tower is an iconic architecture that not only embraces ephemeral but also changes a collective to an individual-oriented living style.
Inspiration: To embrace the idea of flexibility and updating, the newspaper is a great medium as a representation tool. Newspaper changes every day with new information and unfolding it to gain new information reinforces the idea of metabolism. By unfolding the project, each time, the capsule patterns, window colors, shapes, and orientation change within an oblique neutral grid.
Project Duration: Duration: 3 months

Location: Boston, MA, USA
Operation Flow: You could unfold it three times, each time, the capsule patterns, window colors, shapes, and orientation change within an oblique neutral grid, and 7 capsules have been highlighted to expose the interior activities of an individual with personal information next to it. Individual yet connected, neutral yet different for each capsule. You will experience the beauty of the Nakagin capsule tower after you unfold its stories!