By Ziyun Yma Ma:

In an era of accelerated production and synthetic innovation, designer Kewei Zhao offers a quiet yet subversive gesture: a cabinet where wood behaves like textile, resisting the binary between rigidity and softness, where the history of materials becomes a site for contemporary reimagining.

Unveiled this year at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) Launch Pad in New York, Zhao’s Weaving Wood Cabinet embodies the sensibility that has defined her practice — one rooted in material experimentation and an unapologetic patience with process.

At first glance, the trapezoidal cabinet presents itself as modest, measured. Its warm walnut tones and clean geometries evoke a familiar vocabulary of furniture-making. Yet upon closer inspection, the surface reveals an unexpected complexity: the side panels, seemingly woven fabric, are themselves composed of walnut veneer, meticulously threaded together by hand.

Listening to the materials, listening to the wood, asking what it can do when approached like textile, and letting it speak in a different language — that’s how Zhao developed the technique. Machines, she notes, cannot replicate the nuance of tension, flexibility, and calibration required. The process demands a craftsperson's sensitivity: tight enough to secure the walnut strips in place, yet elastic enough to maintain structural integrity without fracture. The woven veneer becomes both skin and structure, casting soft shadows that shift with changing light.

The cabinet also pays quiet homage to furniture archetypes now rare in contemporary production. The trapezoidal form recalls classical storage cabinets — sturdy, architectural, grounded — while the woven panels subvert expectations, inviting touch and lingering observation. Zhao conceives of design as a kind of gentle intervention that doesn’t need to shout. It can ask questions, make people look twice, and perhaps shift how they relate to everyday objects.

Born and raised in China, Zhao's design vocabulary carries traces of her cultural inheritance — an affinity for restraint, symbolism, and the contemplative aesthetics of nature. Yet her time in New York has introduced a counterpoint: experimentation, hybridity, and an unapologetic questioning of material conventions. This duality runs throughout Weaving Wood Cabinet, where the warmth of walnut intersects with the delicate irregularities of hand-woven surfaces.

In 2020, Zhao presented her project UPCYCLE 啊噗噻口 at the Hangzhou International Cultural Expo, where it was selected as one of the year’s “Top 50 Rookie Design Talents.” The work centered on giving new life to discarded furniture by sorting, deconstructing it, then turning the waste into reusable materials and functional accessories. Later that year, the same project was also exhibited at the Zijin Award · 2nd China (Nanjing) University Student Design Exhibition, marking another opportunity for Zhao to showcase her material-centered design practice.

Zhao founded Studio ZKW as a platform for exploring such interventions. Her work extends beyond this singular piece, encompassing experiments in marquetry, carving, and material storytelling.

For Zhao, narrative—both material and cultural—is woven into every project. Each design carries its own unique story, often expressing a distinct perspective or idea through physical form. In doing so, her work reminds us that objects are not static—they are alive, ever-evolving, and capable of sparking dialogue and bringing us new waves of inspiration, again and again.