BOUQUET by myna.

Tokyo-based design unit myna. founded by Ayaka Nakane and Miho Yamauchi, exhibited "Bouquet," a prototype of a light object in the shape of a flower, at DESIGNART TOKYO 2021. Bouquet is a flower-shaped object that lights up when inserted into a vase. We came up with the concept of Bouquet based on the word 'CHANCE', the theme of DESIGNART TOKYO 2021. Due to the pandemic, we are now in an age where people need to take a social distance, so we wanted to create a product that allows people to feel each other's presence even when they are apart.

When we asked the design duo, Nakane and Yamauchi said, "In the past, when candles were used, a fire would have been a symbol that people were there. And we imagine that the brighter the place, the more people were gathering. Also, we assume that the brighter places were crowded with people. Imagining those scenes, we developed this product based on the idea of expressing human behaviour with light."

They chose flowers because it harmonizes with the interior design and also because it is familiar in our lives as a communication tool to convey our feelings to others. Besides, the shape was not intended to resemble a particular flower but to be something that everyone, regardless of gender, would like. During the development process, they recall, "we focused on how to visualize the communication between people." They also describe it as "lighting that allows you to feel the presence of people without words."

This product was envisioned to be used in living rooms and cafes to show the presence of people. The designers also thought that they could create a sizeable luminous bouquet if they used this item at a wedding party. After deciding on the concept, they researched the technologies and adopted a wireless charging system. The vase contains the power supply and coils, and the flower has LED parts and wires.

They conducted most of the production by themselves and talked about the challenges of the DIY process, "Molding the translucent resin for the luminescent part was difficult without bubbles, so we had to try again and again. Also, since different diameters of the vase can make a difference in brightness, the coil inside the vase was adjusted to solve this problem."

The flowers come in three different stem lengths to make them look more natural when placed in a vase. Since the exhibition venue was a colourful space, silver and gold were chosen for the stems because the products would look better.

During the exhibition at the end of October, many visitors were highly interested in their work. At the end of the interview, the duo told us that they would like to continue brushing up "Bouquet" and exhibit it at other events as myna.