Prof. Masayo Ave

Professor Masayo Ave is the founder of the design studio MasayoAve creation and SXD.Lab, Sensory Experience Design Laboratory in Berlin. Merging culture and sciences, the Japanese designer brings her expertise to bear on her sensory- based innovative design works and also in the field of design education. A graduate in architecture from Hosei University in Japan, she started her design career in the early 1990s in Milan. Taking a sensorial and imaginative approach to basic design principles, her focus on material exploration and experimental design development brought her critical fame and many international design awards. In the early 2000s, Masayo Ave also became involved in the field of design education and was appointed to professorships at the Berlin University of the Arts and the Estonian Academy of Arts; she currently is a Visiting Professor at the Kanazawa College of Art, Japan. As a prominent design teacher, she has also dedicated herself to developing a new design education programme for children and young people that encompasses sensory-based design experiences.  

Red Dot: What appeals to you about working as a professor and teacher in addition to being a designer?
Masayo Ave: It is a process of sharing my latest learnings and experiments in the professional field, and of encouraging the younger generation to expand their future activities beyond the narrow limit of one discipline. I also consider it a mission to transfer the almost forgotten wisdom of my grandparents’ generation to my grandchildren’s generation.

How did you develop your passion for design?
By keeping alive my inborn sense of wonder and by renewing my own delight in the mysteries of the earth and living.