Mr. Play Dough

Oki Sato was born in rural Toronto on December 24, 1977, but moved to Tokyo when he was 10 years old. He often cites this culture shock as the catalyst for the quirky way he sees the world. Sato was fascinated by the differences between Canadian and Japanese daily life, and began to notice extraordinary aspects of otherwise basic parts of life. Unsurprisingly, he has loved manga and anime since his youth; its influence on his design style now is evident.

In 2002, he graduated from Waseda University with a Master’s degree in Architecture, but he didn’t truly fall in love with design until later that year, when he visited the Milan Design Week. Sato recalls how this event broke the rigidity from his schooling, how inspired he felt when he saw architecture and designers worked across disciplines so flexibly.

It was shortly after that Nendo, literally meaning “clay” or “play-dough,” was established. Resembling the nature of what he saw in Milan, one of the studio’s core values is malleability–to be flexible and open across disciplines and projects.