Design Map · Eindhoven
Irohanihoheto
Graduation project by Alissa Saito at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
‘Irohanihoheto’ is a cabinet with distinct mirrored patterns created through a ritualistic process. By mindfully applying fire to wood, Alissa Saito reflects on her Japanese cultural heritage as a way of being and explores its embodied knowledge through woodcraft. The project draws on Yakisugi, an ancient Japanese technique of preserving timber by charring its surface. Rather than adopting it as a finishing technique, the designer treats it as a point of departure, a way to enter a state of attentiveness, repetition, and care. Alissa Saito approaches fire as a transformative presence rather than a destructive force, developing a technique that produces patterns through gesture and movement. As the tiles burn, fire carves contours and textures, forming patterns as if drawing an unknown landscape. The cabinet becomes a ritual object, its patterned sliding doors suggesting a meaningful use characterised by quiet and care.