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Kawabi

  • New York, USA

A Poetic Approach to Kozo Paper

The Bio

Kawabi is the New York–based studio practice of Aaron and Irisa Na-Chan Kawabi, a creative partnership born from their shared journey as artists, designers, and descendants of diaspora. Meeting at Parsons School of Design, where they both studied product design, their early collaborations evolved into a dedicated practice grounded in shared values: honoring cultural inheritance, exploring the meaning of home, and transforming craft into a language of belonging.

Guided by a deep spiritual and aesthetic connection to Eastern traditions, Kawabi’s work embraces the slow, intentional processes of traditional joinery and paper-making. Each piece is conceived as both a functional object and an emotional touchstone—imagined heirlooms that feel ancient yet new, rooted in a deeper history yet untethered from any single time or place. Their practice reflects a personal journey to create what they never inherited: design objects that evoke the warmth, familiarity, and presence of a long-lost home.

Working from their intimate Brooklyn studio near the Navy Yard, the pair moves fluidly between woodshop and craft space, allowing hand, mind, and body to remain in constant dialogue. Their process is tactile and immersive, informed by intuition, lived experience, and the belief that beauty and harmony in the home can foster peace and emotional attunement. Each creation—whether a paper lamp, a piece of furniture, or a finely crafted vessel—serves as an offering to daily life, embodying Kawabi’s vision of design as both art and quiet ritual.

Get in touch with us if any inquiries into Kawabi's work

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The Products
  • Souvenir Table Lamp Souvenir Table Lamp
    • Souvenir Table Lamp
    • €1,700
    • Kawabi
    • ex. VAT
  • Souvenir Floor Lamp Souvenir Floor Lamp
    • Souvenir Floor Lamp
    • Price on request
    • Kawabi
  • Legume Lamp Legume Lamp
    • Legume Lamp
    • €1,900
    • Kawabi
    • ex. VAT
  • Cascade Pendant Cascade Pendant
    • Cascade Pendant
    • Price on request
    • Kawabi

The Conversation

For Kawabi, the most challenging project was also their first lamp. Having studied together and trained in the same discipline, Aaron and Irisa had to learn how to work together without their similarities getting in the way. It took years to understand their individual approaches and turn their differences into a strength. That process came together while developing the Souvenir Floor Lamp. Working as both partners and life partners also means there is little separation between their personal and professional lives.

Their work is rooted in a search for connection to the past. Both grew up in immigrant families without many inherited objects or family heirlooms, which led them to think about how they could create their own sense of history through objects. Their early experiments with paper lanterns, traditional hand tools and East Asian techniques became an important starting point for the practice.

Slowness and making by hand are central to their process. Both practise Ashtanga yoga and regularly spend time at a Buddhist monastery on silent retreats, experiences that influence their approach to materials and design. Their lamps are conceived as functional objects, but also as pieces that carry a sense of memory, origin and belonging.

The Souvenir collection began with a simple $2 lamp found in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Kawabi transformed that reference into a series of lights made from solid wood and kozo paper, using traditional reed-binding techniques. Their later work continues to draw from personal references, East Asian rituals and everyday objects, creating lighting that sits somewhere between contemporary design and something much older.
Featured product or designer at work

Work with Kawabi

Through The Orb, you can collaborate directly with Kawabi to create a bespoke or custom piece. Each project is developed through close dialogue, material exploration, and craftsmanship—resulting in a work shaped specifically for you.
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