White and Steel is a design for Toshin Satellite Preparatory School in Nagata Ward, Kobe City, Japan. The school wanted a new reception and office including meetings and consultation spaces. This minimalistic design uses contrast between white and a metal plate called Black Skin Iron to stimulate human senses in various aspects. All textures were uniformly painted white generating an inorganic space. The Black Skin Iron was later applied to several surfaces to make the contrast or displayed in the same way contemporary art Galleries would display their art pieces.

Tetsuya Matsumoto is the founder and Head Architect Designer at KTX archiLAB based in Japan, and a Lecturer of a space design course at Osaka University of Art. After graduating from the same university, he specialized in commercial space design and built a large portfolio of projects varying both in type and scale, from shops and restaurants to offices and clinics, and from a small pharmacy to a large Hospital. Tetsuya has received more than a hundred local and international design awards and became a jury member for several prestigious prizes.

Matsuo Gakuin is a franchisee of the larger Toshin Satellite preparatory schools. These preparatory schools are used by high school’s final year students to prepare for their national university entrance exam. The lessons are standardized for all schools in japan and are prerecorded. Matsuo Gakuin offers accesses to these lessons through its computer equipped classrooms.