AQ

AQ is a practitioner-owned and led independent design and research studio co-founded in 2004 in Tokyo.

What we make — and how we make it — is shaped by, and can in turn shape, language, customs, art, values, infrastructure, buildings and cities. AQ designs through this lens together with colleagues and clients, applying it not only to product work, but also to projects like the curation of Open Studio events or the concept and design of our retreat space in Yatsugatake.

The tools, processes, and expectations of design are changing continuously. Many designers are left simultaneously yearning for grounding and space to experiment. At AQ, we co-create the space to experiment and learn together, tending to our relationships and building feedback loops that invite reflection. We see changes to tooling and potential gains in productivity as a distracting second to AI's ability to enable a closer understanding of the material of design — a means of sharpening our taste and point of view, and more clearly seeing the elements and decisions which we care most deeply for.

As an independent studio in client services, we have the autonomy to choose to what ends we apply these tools, how and where we experiment. We also participate in how other organizations with diverse needs and constraints do the same, providing us with a stream of experience "data" beyond the scale of our own org and the depth that can be gleaned from news headlines and Reddit. Again, making sure the sense making and feedback loops are there and shared, helps ground our conclusions and decisions in tangible values and context.

Themes, ideas and insights weave their way back and forth between our lives at and outside of AQ. Our individual, subjective experiences, interests and world views into project spaces and vice versa, we believe both for the richer. Inquiries which began as client briefs have led some of us to start new sports, organize our personal finances, or reimagine how we care for aging parents.

In whatever ways AQ has become a more interesting, lifestyle-enriching place to work over the years, it was because one of us saw something we wanted to try, brought it to the group, and ultimately made it happen. This has happened over and over again largely in the absence of formal “culture” edicts or programs, because there is a shared underlying belief that life at work can and should be so much better, but only if we make it happen for ourselves.