bamboo copters are the motif for Shunsuke Umiyama’s latest design
If you spent anytime growing up in Japan as a child you most certainly played with bamboo-copters, or taketombo. Invented in China thousands of years ago, the simple wooden toy, which catapults into the air simply by spinning the shaft between your hands, was an astonishing object of imagination. Japanese designer Shunsuke Umiyama has recently incorporated this nostalgic toy into a mobile.
The delicately balanced mobile represents the precise calculations of breeze and movement. Each bamboo-copter generates a soft current that effects the others. Watch the video and you’ll see the soothing, calming effect created by slow-motion movement. The footage, of course, is all taken in normal time.
In the past we’ve written about Umiyama, and the playful designs that Microworks produces. The bamboo copTer, which retails for 6,912 yen, is his first new product in about a year.
