About

Nao Tamura is a designer based in New York. She grew up in Tokyo, left at 19 with one suitcase to study at Parsons School of Design, and has been working between two cities, two languages, and two ways of seeing ever since.

She leads an independent practice, built on long relationships—with clients, craftspeople, and a close circle of collaborators. Each project begins not with a form but with a question: the client’s history, their materials, their constraints—and what she learns from them becomes the work. Every project passes through her hands, from first question to final form.

Her process works like a mobile. She brings an outside perspective; her clients bring depth. The two move in dialogue—back and forth—until a balance point is found. And the structure can always take on one more arm.

This way of working has led to collaborations with makers and manufacturers across Japan, Italy, the UK, Spain, Finland, and the US.

Her practice is rooted in interconnection: the idea that the most interesting things happen at the border between materials, cultures, and people. This has been the constant, whether she is folding metal into furniture, suspending glass in mid-air, or designing a public toilet in Shibuya.

She has presented room-scale installations at Palais de Tokyo and the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, exhibited in “Here We Are! Women in Design 1900–Today” at the Vitra Design Museum, and spoken at TEDxWasedaU, Columbia GSAPP, and the University of Milan. Her recognition includes the iF Design Award and the Compasso d’Oro Honourable Mention for ORIGATA—now in the Compasso d’Oro Historical Collection at the ADI Design Museum, part of Italy’s national cultural heritage.