The pattern is the joinery.

Published 21 October 2026 · WHV · Public-source editorial note

Look closely at a kumiko screen and the pattern becomes a construction lesson. It is not printed over a panel. Narrow wooden pieces meet at carefully prepared angles, and the spaces left between them are as deliberate as the material. Light gives the resulting geometry another dimension.

The gaps do as much work as the wood

Tanihata in Toyama continues this Japanese technique through contemporary screens and interior components. Its account describes assembling the wooden elements without nails. That does not mean every frame, fixing or installation can be assumed to use no other materials. The useful discovery is the precision of the pattern-making system itself.

The workshop offers traditional motifs as well as bespoke abstract and figurative compositions. In 2025, it announced a collaboration with Saudi woodworker Ahmad Angawi, bringing kumiko into dialogue with the Hijazi lattice tradition of mangour. Panel imagery supplied with that announcement shows the lattice work behind the exchange. It should not be mistaken for a named traditional Japanese pattern or a currently available standard product.

Ask how the pattern will live in a room

Consider the scale of a partition, a door component or a smaller piece before deciding what belongs at home. Ask about the timber, finish, light direction, installation and appropriate care. An intricate screen is not automatically structural or maintenance-free. Its compelling value lies in knowledge made visible through an object that still has a job to do. Geometry becomes something a room can live with, rather than a historical technique kept only behind glass.

Source and context.

Tanihata: contemporary kumiko products and living workshop ↗

Tanihata: bespoke Art Kumiko compositions ↗

Tanihata: the 2025 Japanese and Saudi lattice collaboration ↗

The press photograph accompanies the 2025 kumiko and mangour collaboration announcement, not a current standard-product listing. No glue-free, structural, fire-rating or indefinite-durability claim is made for every screen or installation.

Source checked 21 October 2026. WHV interpretation is distinct from the source’s account.