People Trust Your Vision: Keisuke Fujiwara

Keisuke Fujiwara is the director of the Keisuke Fujiwara Design Office Company, based in Honmachi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. He’s currently working on his company with a team of three members. The design office covers architecture, interior design and product design. Keisuke Fujiwara converses about what makes his company consistent and why his team is so important.

Spool Chair and Rain Chair

Fujiwara says that his passion for architecture was born before he even knew what he was doing. Way back in kindergarten, he created houses with clay and papers during play hour, though having no idea that it was houses he made. “Design is filled with dreams and hope, no sorrow” he says.

Having Focus

When managing your company, it’s crucial to understand what effects people and how you can help your clients, they are those who place their responsibility in your hands. Fujiwara says that he keeps his focus because he constantly is aware of what is emotionally moving people that are introduced to his works: “It is important to always be remindful of moving people.”

His company’s focus is also very dependent of the consistency he and his team have. He shares that he maintains his “consistence by finding his philosophy.”

You need a philosophy to let your audience know what they always can except from you, so that you can build trust. He says that his advice on how to become a successful architect and find your own way is by learning from history and truly understand the past. “We cannot create the future without the past.”

The importance of a Good Team

"It is more difficult to work alone and search for the answers of design. The high quality design projects can be realized by a team with unique opinions and ideas."

A team should consist of people that are passionate, ambitious and can take the challenges and wariness that is involved in being in an especially small company. Here cooperation is major and so is the guarantee that everyone has their own place in the office and knowing the company's philosophy. Fujiwara knows that his team is well-suited for him as he says: “My team fills up a vacancy which I cannot realize.“

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