Japanese washi wallpaper — designed by Chiaki Uematsu
Koujaku
Kansou
An interlude between light and silence. Handmade washi, printed and finished in gold, on a surface that never looks the same way twice.
The material
Light moves through the day. The wall answers it.
Washi is made from long plant fibres laid across one another by hand. That structure holds light instead of stopping it, which is why a washi surface reads as depth rather than as flat colour.
Koujaku Kansou prints on that surface with contemporary technique and finishes it in gold. Morning light picks out the fibre. Afternoon light flattens it. Lamplight at night brings the gold forward. One wall carries all three.
Every roll is printed in Japan and can be matched to the dimensions of the wall it is going on.
Who it is made for
Every wall is made to order. Pattern, scale, colour, and finish are developed for one space and printed to its dimensions — there is no catalogue to choose from.
Restaurants & bars
A private room, the wall behind the counter, the approach to the entrance. Places where guests sit still long enough to notice the surface change as the evening lighting comes up.
Shops & showrooms
A backdrop that holds a Japanese register without competing with what is on display. Works well behind product, and photographs cleanly.
Hotels & ryokan
Headboard walls, lift lobbies, tea rooms. One papered surface per room gives a repeatable identity across a floor without repeating a printed motif.
Homes & short-stay rentals
Overseas houses and apartments, and short-stay listings where one distinctive room is the reason people book. Rolls ship internationally.
Film, stage & painting
The gold reflects rather than glares, so it reads with texture under directional lighting. Also supplied plain, as a support for artists working on washi.
One wall is enough
Change the light, change the room.
A single papered wall shifts the whole room. There is no need to treat four surfaces, and no need to rebuild anything: the change comes from how the gold and the fibre catch whatever light the space already has.
Best placed where light arrives at an angle — beside a window, behind a bed, along a corridor that a lamp washes at night.
Installations
Settings — visualised
Digitally visualised rooms, showing how the paper is intended to sit in a space.
Designed by
Chiaki Uematsu
Registered architect, Tokyo. Design chief on the renovation of the Nippon Budokan — Tokyo’s national martial arts hall, built in 1964 — for the 2020 Games, a project awarded the BELCA Prize.
Production design supervision on an international feature film, now available on Netflix. Currently designing houses, restaurants, and hotels in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East from a practice in Tokyo.
Koujaku Kansou comes out of that work: every roll is drawn by the same hand that draws the room.
About the studioRequest a quotation
Tell us about the wall.
Every project is quoted individually. Send whatever you have — a photograph of the room is enough to start.
- The spaceRestaurant, shop, hotel, home, or short-stay rental — and where in it the wall sits.
- DimensionsApproximate width and height of the wall, or a drawing if you have one.
- LightDaylight from which side, and what the lighting does at night. This drives the design more than anything else.
- DirectionColours, materials, or references you are working with. Photographs of the room as it is now are useful.
- Timing & locationInstallation date you are working toward, and the delivery address. We ship outside Japan.
Rolls ship worldwide. Enquiries in English or Japanese.
- The spaceRestaurant, shop, hotel, home, or short-stay rental — and where in it the wall sits.
- DimensionsApproximate width and height of the wall, or a drawing if you have one.
- LightDaylight from which side, and what the lighting does at night. This drives the design more than anything else.
- DirectionColours, materials, or references you are working with. Photographs of the room as it is now are useful.
- Timing & locationInstallation date you are working toward, and the delivery address. We ship outside Japan.
Rolls ship worldwide. Enquiries in English or Japanese.