A slice of life shrinks even smaller with the miniature design line, Terada Mokei. Architect-turned-modeler Naoki Terada's Architectural Model Accessories Series is a monochrome microcosmic representation of everyday life. Terada adopted a 1/100 scale ratio for the series, promoting a metric-based "global standard" that adorably scales down the largeness of reality to one-hundredth the size.
Populating the paper environments, Terada's version of the modern man and his archetypal family consist of featureless cookie-cutter silhouettes of male, female and child figures. Each series places a variation of the family in different scenarios, ranging from park activities to earthquake-disrupted dinners and office obsequiousness, all packaged in single-colored sheets of pre-cut parts, reminiscent of model die-cuts.
Terada-Mokei was established with a view to exploring the potential for modeling, which is created by scaling things down and giving them detail, through models. This reflects our belief that when real items are replaced with models, the latter have an essence of reality, stuffed with dreams, and the potential to become more vibrant -- better word in my opinion than their originals. We also consider it important to enjoy the process of assembling models.
Terada-Mokei also hopes to convey the fun of assembling models and imagining the same.
