Japanese designer Shuya Iida attended furniture design school in Tokyo, where he learned how to build cabinets and chairs. After graduating in 2009, he moved to New York and studied English. Soon after he began working for a Japanese construction company, making furniture pieces and learning how to build rooms from the ground up. Four years later Iida founded Hachi Collections, his own product and furniture design studio located on Van Dyke Street in Red Hook.
The word ‘hachi’ represents the number 8 in Japanese. The company logo is based on the numerical figure motif and incorporates light and dark elements for stark contrast.
Now a decade later, Iida and Takafumi Toyama, director and project manager at Hachi, designs, build and sell handmade contemporary furniture. Most customers, according to Iida, want a simply designed Hachi table with customized lengths/heights in either white oak or walnut. Hachi’s most popular pieces in the collection are dining room tables, coffee tables and chairs (chairs being Iida’s personal favorite to design and build). And though some people tell him his furniture is “too expensive,” Iida explains to them that the materials and details are the determining factors that make differences between what they can purchase at his business versus big-box stores like IKEA.
When Iida wants to build something new, he starts with a sketch, makes a 3D model using software, and then has Toyama make small-scaled product models. One of the challenges he encounters is that the prototype will look different than the 3D image on the screen. They often make more than one model to determine what kind of wood would be better for strength and durability and to physically see the different details that might end up on the finished product.
Iida is always checking Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration and looking up historical designs and styles online.
“It’s like old culture in a new Instagram world,” he said.
Hachi Collections is starting to make small home products as well now, such as wooden aroma diffusers. Iida added that they want to make small wooden crates, bowls, chairs, tables and interior lighting for restaurants in the future. And he has no intentions of leaving Red Hook any time soon.
“Most people in creative design stay in Red Hook,” Iida said. “My previous office in the Bronx was not interesting. And I love the view!
For more information, visit hachicollections.com or email hello@hachicollections.com.
Top photo of STANDING CABINET POLYNNET from Hachi Collections’ website
Author
George Fiala has worked in radio, newspapers and direct marketing his whole life, except for when he was a vendor at Shea Stadium, pizza and cheesesteak maker in Lancaster, PA, and an occasional comic book dealer. He studied English and drinking in college, international relations at the New School, and in his spare time plays drums and fixes pinball machines.
