Unfolding A Nakagin Story Tidningsaffisch by Yang Tian

Unfolding A Nakagin Story Tidningsaffisch by Yang Tian is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2025 A' Design Award i Järn in Grafik-, Illustrations- och Visuell Kommunikationsdesign Competition Category.

JärnGrafik· 2025

Unfolding A Nakagin Story Tidningsaffisch

by Yang Tian

A' Design Award i Järn Winner in Grafik 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 Tidningsaffisch

För att återidentifiera Japans modernitet efter kriget föreställer sig Kisho Kurokawa, den yngste medlemmen i Metabolism-gruppen, moderna bostäder som individuella celler. De rör sig, smälter, växer och förmultnar, och formar ett nytt samhälle där människor inte längre bor i ett fast utrymme. Unfolding a Nakagin Story använder tidningen som medium för att dokumentera och expandera denna Metabolism-vision, genom utveckling för att skapa en urban berättelse.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award i Järn

Unfolding A Nakagin Story Tidningsaffisch är vinnare av A' Design Award i Järn, ett prestigefyllt erkännande som tilldelas bra designverk som uppfyller de professionella och industriella krav som förväntas av välgjorda skapelser. Järnvinnare visar stor skicklighet, hög specialisering, expertförståelse och skaparnas kreativa förmåga. Unfolding A Nakagin Story Tidningsaffisch förväntas vara en högt skattad, beundrad och älskad skapelse som är praktisk och innovativ. Detta vinnande verk i A' Design Award i Järn integrerar branschens bästa praxis och har kompetenta tekniska egenskaper kopplade till kunnande och talang. Unfolding A Nakagin Story Tidningsaffisch respekteras för sin grundlighet och är utformat för att åstadkomma förbättringar av livskvaliteten som hjälper till att göra världen till en bättre plats.

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!