A Little House Made of Chopstick Rests: Taro Horikoshi and the Space Left Open in Everyday Life
- Aug 2
- 7 min read
Four wooden roofs are stacked one above another on a small house. At mealtime, they are removed and set around the table as chopstick rests. Afterward, they return to their original position. What remains on the table is not a collection of loose parts waiting to be put into a drawer, but a house standing quietly in place.
The object, called Ie-gata Hashioki (家形箸置き, house-shaped chopstick rest), neatly explains how Taro Horikoshi thinks. A household object has a problem to solve, but he sees no reason to disguise that function. Chopstick rests are easily scattered, so he makes them stack. If they are going to remain on the table when not in use, he gives them a form worth looking at.
Storage, in this case, does not mean making something disappear. It means rearranging it.
Taro Horikoshi, a Japanese woodworker from Saitama Prefecture, runs Horikoshi Seisakusho (ホリコシ製作所) and makes small wooden household objects under his independent product brand, Kurashi no Dōgu Yohaku o (暮らしの道具 よはくを). Each has a clear use and a measured sense of asobigokoro (遊び心), a Japanese word suggesting playfulness or an inventive turn of mind.
Coffee filters become the sail of a boat. A shoehorn rests on its stand like a bird on a perch. A portable side table, extended by a long handle, takes on the alert posture of a small animal.
The function is not concealed. It is allowed to determine the shape.
Learning to Read a Room Before Returning to Wood
Born in 1987, Horikoshi studied interior design in the Department of Industrial, Interior and Craft Design at Musashino Art University. Unlike a woodworker trained first through an apprenticeship, he began with the scale of a room: how people move through an interior, how furniture occupies space and how much distance should remain between one object and another.
After graduating, he enrolled in the woodworking program at the Jonan Vocational Skills Development Center, supplementing his design education with practical training. He later worked in a furniture studio, where he learned the processes behind custom furniture, joinery and the drying of lumber.
The two forms of training remain visible in his work.
Horikoshi can design tokuchū kagu (特注家具, custom-made furniture) and jūki (什器, fixtures and furnishings) for schools, libraries and other public settings. He also makes objects small enough to fit in the hand or occupy one corner of a dining table.
The first kind of work requires him to consider circulation, proportion and years of repeated use. In the second, the scale contracts. Attention shifts to the feeling of a sanded surface beneath the fingers, or to the way an object looks after someone has set it down.
Wood is not always the beginning of the design. Sometimes the first thing Horikoshi notices is an unused patch of tabletop, or an item in the entryway that never seems to have a proper place.
Giving “Yohaku” a Clearer Place
Horikoshi established his first independent brand, Sake no Sakana (サケノサカナ), in the fall of 2017. The name refers to sakana eaten with alcohol — a small dish that is not the center of a meal but changes the experience around it.
Even then, the name suggested how he understood the role of an object. It did not have to command attention to alter the way a moment felt.
Horikoshi later moved his workshop to Tokigawa, a town in Saitama Prefecture. In 2023, working with the local design company LLC akarito, he reorganized the brand under a new name: Kurashi no Dōgu Yohaku o.
The central word is yohaku (余白). It can mean blank space, margin or the area deliberately left unfilled. The brand’s guiding line reads:
暮らしにゆとりを、空間に遊び心を。Leave room in daily life, and a little playfulness in space.
The change of name did not impose a new philosophy on the work. Horikoshi’s earlier objects were already concerned with the spaces between things. They stacked, hung, docked or could be lifted and moved. The new name simply made that concern easier to see.
The imagery developed for the relaunched brand also looks beyond wood grain and workmanship. It shows hands reaching for an object, the shadow it casts and the way it remains on a table after use. The objects are not isolated on display plinths. They stay inside the ordinary gestures of making coffee, eating a meal or putting on shoes.
The Machine Establishes the Form. The Hand Decides How It Feels.
The production process at Yohaku o occupies a position between traditional teshigoto (手仕事, handwork) and mechanized manufacturing.
Horikoshi uses equipment including table saws and CNC machines for the early cutting stages. These tools control dimensions, establish the structure and make repeated production more consistent. When the work reaches the edges, curved surfaces and points of contact, it returns to his hands.
Sandpaper removes the sharpness left by machine cutting. Oil brings out the grain and deepens the color of the wood. When an object has something resembling the expression of an animal or person, small adjustments to its curves are made at this stage.
A little more sanding, or a little less, can change the character of a piece. It may appear heavy, alert or as though it is leaning slightly forward.
Horikoshi describes this as a middle course. Machines provide precision and efficiency. Handwork remains where it directly affects the experience of use. The finished pieces retain the rounded feel of carefully sanded wood without having to be priced as entirely one-off objects.
This is not simply a compromise between craft and mass production. For objects that will be picked up, set down and wiped clean every day, consistency and judgment are separate requirements. Some parts need to remain identical. Others have to be checked by hand.
Seven Objects That Do Not Need to Be Put Away
Many of Horikoshi’s objects begin with the assumption that they will be left out.
The Japanese expression dashippanashi (出しっぱなし) describes something taken out and never put back. It usually carries a suggestion of disorder. In the work of Yohaku o, however, remaining visible is part of the design.
Selected Works by Kurashi no Dōgu Yohaku o
Product | Materials | Design and Use |
chopstick rest（家形箸置き） | Body: beech. Roofs: walnut, cherry, oak and beech. | A house-shaped object whose four roof sections become individual chopstick rests. The pieces stack together for storage, and changing the order of the wood species changes the appearance of the house. When not in use, it remains on the dining table as a small wooden structure. |
coffee paper holder（yotto） | Oak and brass. | When approximately 15 coffee filters are inserted, the holder takes the form of a yacht. The filters themselves become the sail and complete the object. |
dripper stand（hook） | Oak and brass. | A cantilevered structure holds the coffee dripper off to one side, as though it were biting onto the support. The brass gradually oxidizes with use, recording the passage of time on its surface. |
kitchen paper holder（ARCH） | Cherry and brass. | A bentwood arch forms the handle at the top, making the holder easy to lift and move around the home. |
shoehorn（トマリギ） | Maple and iron rod. | The shoehorn rests on the stand like a bird on a branch. A magnet hidden inside the wood attaches it to the iron support. When not in use, it remains in the entryway as a small sculptural form. |
side table/stool（stick） | White ash. | An extended handle, like a walking stick, allows the piece to be carried from place to place. Its stance suggests a small animal. The piece is assembled from separate components and can serve as either a side table or a low seat. |
wall clock（dodecagon） | Maple and melamine decorative board. | Thin pieces of melamine are inserted into the wooden joints, serving as hour markers while emphasizing the clock’s geometric construction. |
In the house-shaped chopstick rest, stacking provides both storage and display.
With yotto, an ordinary supply of coffee filters becomes indispensable to the appearance of the object. Before the paper is inserted, it is a boat without a sail. The piece is completed only when someone is about to make coffee.
The hook dripper stand places its visual weight on a cantilever. The dripper does not sit at the center of a base. It hangs at the side, held in place as though caught between the wooden members. Oak and brass retain their different surfaces, and the brass darkens with time. Use leaves a visible record.
The humor in these objects does not depend on decoration. Horikoshi usually changes only one thing: he moves a point of support, lengthens a line or allows the act of storage to alter an object’s silhouette.
The familiar object shifts slightly away from what it is expected to look like. Its purpose, however, remains clear.
In Tokigawa, Woodwork Sits Beside Camping Equipment
Horikoshi Seisakusho is based in Tokigawa, a town with substantial forest resources and a growing number of younger woodworkers. Independent studios there produce furniture, household objects and interior installations. Woodworking is not confined to displays of traditional craft.
The area around Horikoshi’s studio is also connected to NONIWA, a camping guesthouse. GRID, an outdoor equipment store operated by NONIWA, sells camping gear alongside Horikoshi’s solid-wood objects.
The arrangement moves woodwork out of the glass cabinet and into the settings of camping, picnics and outdoor coffee making. A filter holder or side table placed here does not need to announce itself as a work of craft. People first see how it is lifted, moved and set down. Only afterward might they notice the wood or the structure.
That setting is consistent with Horikoshi’s broader approach. These objects are not meant to be treated as precious. Their reason for occupying space is that they are used.
Return, finally, to the little house made of chopstick rests.
Before the meal, the roof is removed one piece at a time. Afterward, walnut, cherry, oak and beech are stacked again, perhaps in a different order.
The table has not been cleared of everything. It now holds a small house — and beside it, a little space that does not yet need to be assigned a purpose.
Comments