Share this on

The Tale Unfolds pix

Edie Cohen -- Interior Design, 3/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Gabellini Sheppard Associates principal Michael Gabellini and designer Kentaro Ishihara peer through Ishihara's pleated screen of nylon mesh.

An installation of nylon mesh, once at New York's Parsons the New School for Design.

Handwoven cotton thread and fishing line.

A lamp shade made of polypropylene.

Double-faced cotton and fishing line, unpleated.

Fishing line coated with rubber to sustain pleats.

Nylon mesh in its raw state.

Window shades at the Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York.

The paper mold for the Parsons installation.

WHO: Kentaro Ishihara.
WHAT: Screens, shades and tablecloths made from intricately pleated fabric.

WHY: "Michael Gabellini and I have different creative backgrounds, but we share an appreciation of craft, a fascination with art, and an obsession with form and materials."

Growing up in Matsue, Japan, Kentaro Ishihara mastered origami. Now a designer at Gabellini Sheppard Associates, he's still folding. These days, however, he's weaving textiles and pleating them into screens, shades, and tablecloths. "It started when I was at Parsons," explains Ishihara, who majored in product and textile design.

Ishihara takes a humble material, such as fishing line or polypropylene mesh, and brings out its exquisite properties. He begins by making a paper mold, then adheres the fabric to the mold and steams it over a pot of water. A setting period ranging from four hours to a week increases the strength and volume of the fabric, so it can be formed into objects.

He's now planning a freestanding nylon partition for Gabellini Sheppard Associates residential interiors in New York. "Kentaro has taken a craft from couture," says principal Michael Gabellini, "and helped us introduce it in the home environment." It's not quite alchemy, but it's close.