[Photo provided to China Daily]

After spending years in the West with reputable jewelry houses, a designer returns to his roots in more ways than one. Sun Yuanqing reports.

Sitting in a studio filled with teapots and bamboo furniture, Dayu Shi hasn't stepped out of the building, where he works and lives, for four days while on his new project.

As he sips tea and plays with a geometric wood carving, the award-winning designer who has just won another award, the German Design Award 2016, is not in a hurry to explain his work, either.

"After all, your work speaks for itself," Shi, 51, says.

Once a top-notch jewelry designer, Shi has worked with some of the world's most expensive materials. But now he is into bamboo, one of the most common natural materials found in southern and eastern China.

"For me, the real challenge is to design with the most basic material," he says.

His Xiao Yao Chair, which the German Design Award jury says "brings comfort and function into optimum balance", is an example.