It’s tangly, brown and fibrous — and for centuries, it’s been cut, woven and crafted by Japanese artisans to make sturdy tools for daily life, from brooms and brushes to ropes and nets.Now, the natural bark of the shuro palm tree has been reimagined by the emerging designer Kazuki Nagasawa, who has transformed the traditional material into an ethereal, light-filtering collection of contemporary objects.Nagasawa, the founder of Tokyo-based studio Super Rat, was recently spotlighted in the international design world after winning first place in the prestigious annual SaloneSatellite Award for young designers at Salone del Mobile during Milan Design Week. The designer, 29, presented his Utsuwa-Juhi Series, a collection of vases made from semi-transparent expanses of juhi bark from Japanese shuro trees, molded into organic abstractions and natural forms — a contemporary expression of the typically traditional material.