Murakami
It takes me about a year to read a book, not because I am a slow reader, but because when I read I imagine the spaces described from the text in as much detail as possible. The spaces or scenes become more clear and elaborate as the story unfolds, but design is not a linear process, so my mind makes many iterations of a scene before arriving at its final design. I sketch my designs and ideas on the pages of the book and take notes of how a space feels, the lighting, views from certain windows, materials, the arrangement of furniture, even what’s in the bookshelf or pantry to give my spaces life and truly imagine them as something real. It’s a fun design process to pretend the text is something like a fictional client. I imagine this is similar to what production design or art direction might do for films.
After reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, I took my obsession with imagining scenes a step further and designed one of the structures from the book using architectural software and eventually built a scale model to bring my vision to life. I loved making the drawings and the model, so I did it again for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. I am currently working on a new one for Killing Commendatore and will keep you updated with the images when finished.
