Kodai Shimizu

Kodai Shimizu is a Japanese designer whose practice moves between small objects and broad social questions, from a paper flower vase to systems that make information visible. Born in Kanagawa in 1990, he studied industrial, interior and craft design at Musashino Art University before moving to the Netherlands in 2017 to join the Social Design course at Design Academy Eindhoven.

After graduating in 2019 he returned to Japan in 2022 and now teaches part-time at Osaka University of Arts. His projects, including Memento Element, Stillness, Komorebi and the Joynt chair, explore how people and things relate, often working with waste, paper, wood or human hair; in 2025 he was a finalist at the Tokyo Midtown Award and exhibited at Designtide Tokyo.