KOKUYO 数字制造工作室丨KOKUYO 与 VUILD 合作

KOKUYO has opened a digital fabrication studio in its office THE CAMPUS to launch a new business that utilizes digital fabrication technology. During diversifying work styles, KOKUYO aspires to build a new base and introduce technology to support the next era of manufacturing and space design.

The concept of the studio is a testing ground for exploring the unknown possibilities of manufacturing. The studio is equipped with a 3-axis digital woodworking machine "ShopBot" and a variety of tools to create an environment where ideas can take shape immediately without the need for costly molds. The studio aims to create new value by spreading the culture of "prototyping" within the company and eliminating the traditional barriers between "makers" and "users" through repeated prototyping and verification with customers and partners. The studio's name "(0,0,0)" is derived from the x --, y --, and z axes that characterize "ShopBot" and the prototype as the "starting point" of manufacturing, where the first forms and ideas are generated.

All the furniture in the studio is prototypes created through collaboration between KOKUYO employees and VUILD, a company with expertise in digital fabrication technology.  The outcomes are experimental combinations of KOKUYO's prefabricated components and wood parts. For example, a new chair was created by attaching a seat made of wood, cut, and assembled on top of swivel chair legs. Other components were attached in place of the seat to create a lamp and a planter. In addition to simply cutting out planks of wood, they are taking advantage of the processing features of the "ShopBot" to bend wood with slits and produce tables that expand and contract in a bellows-like shape, challenging themselves to create original new designs with their own free ideas. In front of the studio is a large artwork that wraps an entire column. The art, which appears to be parasitic on the architecture and erode the space, consists of more than 1,000 pieces of wood with the "C" of THE CAMPUS as the key element and was created as a symbol of the expansion of new manufacturing through digital fabrication from this location.

By using digital data to collaborate with manufacturing sites around Japan, local production for local consumption becomes possible. It also aims to create a sustainable environment by promoting forestry revitalization and forest conservation through the effective use of local timber and thinned wood.