Zen Den | A Japanese-inspired interior by Garcia Tamjidi mixes rough timber and calming white walls. Photography by Sharon Risedorph/Garcia Tamjidi Architecture Design

Sensual, tactile, organic—the new wave of Japanese design is offering Westerners relief from digital overload.

Over The Past few years, the ubiquity of chilly digital screens in our lives—and the idea that you can tap, swipe and pinch-and-zoom your way to perfectly calibrated bliss—has led designers and their clients to crave more sensual objects: the handmade, the organic, anything more satisfyingly touchable than a smartphone.

Exhibit A:The neighborhood hipster restaurant, inevitably clad in reclaimed wood. These salvaged-look eateries, so ubiquitous they’ve become a cliché, are the design equivalent of distressed jeans.“It’s everywhere; it’s even in Starbucks,” said Marc Kushner, co-founder of New York-based architecture firm HWKN.These kind of materials, he added, “speak to an architectural desire on the part of the public for something less than perfect. Something irrational.”.......Continue Reading

From top left:Yoko Komae Clay Flower Vase 2, $365, anzunewyork.com; Kyosuke Okui Large Magnolia Wood Cooking Spoon, $29, mjolk.ca; Asahiyaki Japanese Glazed Porcelain Vase by Studio OeO, $850, Atelier Courbet, 212-226-7378; Hirota Glass Studio Tea Leaf Print Brunch Tumbler, $68, and Sake Cup, $54, saranyc.com; Kihachi Workshop Natural Oak Butterfly Bowl, $75, preorder at [email protected]; Katazome Grey Roundels Textile, $110, Katazome Chuugata Fans and Butterflies Textile, $80, and Jishiro Katazome-Kikko Textile, $85, and Pale Narrow Sakiori Obi, $55, Sri, Brooklyn, 718-599-2559; Okatsune Koryu Carbon Steel Ikebana Scissors, $68, niwaki.com; Dairoku Wooden Spoons and Holder, $68 for five spoons and holder, the189.com Photography: F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling By Anne Cardenas

Japanese décor F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas (Pitcher & Tumblers, Napkins, Dipping Cups); Nalata Nalata (Tray Table); Art Gray (Ofuro);Jasper Morrison Studio (Tea Kettle).

> via wsj.com/europe