yusan to Exhibit for the First Time at Milan Design Week 2026

The culture brand 'yusan,' originating from Tokushima, will unveil 'yusan stool—Forest, in time.' at the Milan Design Week 2026, one of the world's largest international furniture and interior design trade fairs. By cross-cutting logs to reveal the time the tree lived, this product creates an opportunity to rethink the value of abandoned forests.

Concept: Forest, in time. This chair brings 'mountain time' into any space. The annual rings on the stool's surface are a cross-section of the unique time a single tree lived in the mountains. No two rings are the same. In the homogeneous flow of urban time, the mountain time that circulates over long periods flows through. This is a chair that gives a new axis to the time we live in—like a clock, but without a time.

Message: I was born into a family that worked in forestry until my grandfather's generation. But now, those trees remain in the mountains, called liabilities. Yet, when I enter the mountains, I feel a strange sense of fulfillment. I believe it is because I am immersed in 'mountain time.' Urban time is fast, efficient, and productive. But in that speed, we sometimes miss what is important. On the other hand, a completely different time flows in the mountains. Things living in long timeframes circulate. When you surrender to that time, your senses sharpen, and you feel the reality of being alive. Once you know that feeling, it stays with you even when you return to the city. I wondered if we could incorporate that 'mountain time' into various spaces away from the mountains. That question led to this stool. Counting the rings, the tree is exactly 50 years old. Cutting down a tree that has grown over many years felt like a ritualistic act of taking a life. The rings record the time the tree lived. From information like rainfall and land data, I think of other trees that lived in the same era and region. This product starts from one mountain in Tokushima. I want it to be a medium that conveys that the mountains sleeping in various places are alive. Using time as an entrance, I hope to reflect on the value of the mountains. By doing so, I hope that light will shine on all sleeping values. - Miyu Tanaka, yusan

Technology: We adopted a method using machinery for veneer production to utilize the annual rings directly in the design. Originally, veneer is manufactured by slicing logs thinly in the grain direction, but in this work, we use similar machinery to cut logs in the cross-cut direction to realize a veneer that shows the rings as they are. Normally, annual rings are prone to cracking due to drying and are difficult to maintain in their original state, but by applying special processing after machining, we have established it as a material. While veneer production is a rational processing method that produces little wood waste or offcuts, much of it is processed as standardized plywood, and the individuality of the wood is homogenized. This work uses the same manufacturing technology but shifts toward visualizing the individual differences and time of the wood as they are. The annual rings on the seat are traces of the time each tree has grown, making it possible to express a uniqueness not seen in conventional material usage. Design and manufacturing: Kodai Iwamoto

Exhibition/Brand Overview: yusan is a culture brand launched in November 2025 that aims to move the relationship between people, culture, and nature once again, starting from sensibility and creativity. We aim to turn mountains that have become liabilities into assets, using unused forests as our field. We will unveil our first furniture collection at this exhibition.