Expressional Characteristics of Interior Design Presented in the Food and Beverage Spaces of Yukio Hashimoto

The food and beverage spaces of modern industrial society have transformed from a simple space for meals into a space of culture, communication and experience as society becomes more complex and diverse along side economic growth. An interior designer who is rapidly rising on this flow of change is Yukio Hashimoto. While working for interior design firm Super Potato, which highlights food and beverage spaces, he was much affected by the expression methods of representative designer Takashi Sugimoto, who makes use of natural elements. By using these expression methods that make use of natural elements in his own creation of spatial ambience and elements of experience and by adding his own differentiated expression methods, he emphasizes an effective spatial expression for food and beverage spaces. The design characteristics of Yukio Hashimoto's food and beverage spaces are as follows. First natural elements like light and water are recreated as memories of nature after being established through a methodology that allows these elements to penetrate his own thoughts. Second, he pursues a hybrid design through the harmony between past tradition and current expressive techniques. Third, he expresses objets of light through a formative sense of shape expressed with light.. Fourth, he establishes an axis in the interior space by light and structure and endows a strong directionality that induces symmetric characteristics, gaze, and movement.. Fifth, he installs lights at the bottom of weighty materials and expresses a sense of floating by light. Sixth, he uses an illusion technique that makes use of the ambiguity and depth of space resulting from reflecting materials like mirrors. The study hopes that such design expression characteristics of food and beverage spaces can be used as data for interior designers to apply and develop a new design vocabulary.