Unfolding A Nakagin Story Časopisni plakat by Yang Tian

Unfolding A Nakagin Story Časopisni plakat by Yang Tian is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2025 Železna nagrada A' Design Award in Grafično oblikovanje, ilustracija in vizualna komunikacija Competition Category.

ŽeleznaGrafika· 2025

Unfolding A Nakagin Story Časopisni plakat

by Yang Tian

Železna nagrada A' Design Award Winner in Grafika Category

8,847
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #162345

View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

Colors

The Design

About Unfolding A Nakagin Story Časopisni plakat

Da bi ponovno opredelil japonsko modernost po vojni, si Kisho Kurokawa, najmlajši član skupine Metabolizem, predstavlja sodobno stanovanje kot posamezne celice. Te se premikajo, prebavljajo, rastejo in propadajo ter oblikujejo novo družbo, kjer ljudje ne živijo več v fiksnem prostoru. Razpiranje zgodbe Nakagin uporablja časopis kot medij za dokumentiranje in razširitev te metabolistične vizije ter skozi razpiranje ustvarja urbano zgodbo.

The Recognition

About the Železna nagrada A' Design Award

Unfolding A Nakagin Story Časopisni plakat je prejemnik Železne nagrade A' Design Award, prestižnega priznanja, ki se podeljuje dobrim oblikovanjem, ki izpolnjujejo profesionalne in industrijske zahteve, pričakovane od dobro zasnovanih stvaritev. Prejemniki Železne nagrade kažejo veliko spretnost, visoko specializacijo, strokovno razumevanje in ustvarjalne zmožnosti svojih ustvarjalcev. Od Unfolding A Nakagin Story Časopisni plakat se pričakuje, da bo visoko cenjena, občudovana in ljubljena stvaritev, ki je praktična in inovativna. To oblikovanje, nagrajeno z Železno nagrado A' Design Award, vključuje najboljše prakse panoge in ima kompetentne tehnične lastnosti, povezane s strokovnim znanjem in talentom. Zaradi svoje temeljitosti si Unfolding A Nakagin Story Časopisni plakat zasluži spoštovanje in je zasnovan tako, da zagotavlja izboljšave kakovosti življenja, ki pomagajo narediti svet boljši kraj.

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!