"Designer So Koizumi's new furniture series As excavates asphalt from its contemporary association with road surfaces to recover its original function - an adhesive medium that has connected disparate materials for millennia. This archaeological approach to materiality transforms a substance associated with modern banality into something approaching alchemical sophistication. The material beneath our feet - typically dismissed as utilitarian infrastructure - holds forgotten potential as a sophisticated binding agent."
"The revelation that Jomon-period inhabitants of Japan used asphalt to fasten stone arrowheads to wooden shafts 10,000 years ago provides the collection's conceptual foundation. Koizumi treats this historical precedent not as novelty but as technical precedent, positioning asphalt as what he terms a mediator - a substance whose essential character involves negotiating relationships between otherwise incompatible elements. The series comprises stools, side tables, lighting fixtures, and wall-mounted objects, each exploring how metal, stone, and resin might achieve structural and visual coherence through asphalt's binding properties."
Designer So Koizumi's As series reclaims asphalt's original role as an adhesive, transforming a utilitarian road material into refined binding elements for furniture. Jomon-period use of asphalt to attach stone arrowheads to wooden shafts serves as technical precedent for treating asphalt as a mediator between incompatible materials. The collection includes stools, side tables, lighting, and wall pieces that explore connections among metal, stone, and resin. Koizumi personally formulates and finishes multiple asphalts through cycles of mixing, heating, and forming, producing varied structures and textures tailored to each object's needs. The results read as material experiments expressed through functional forms.
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