JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICES
01 · Himeji, Hyogo
ECO RING
Desks and lockers
Another is a straightforward room of tables with a wall of lockers.
Read the ECO RING office →COLLECTIONS › LOCKERS & CHANGING ROOMS
Collection
Lockers & changing rooms — 11 of Japan’s best
When nobody owns a desk, things go in a locker — the storage that makes free address work in Japan.
Free address seating only works if people can clear the desk at night. In Japanese offices that means personal lockers, often grouped near the entrance or in a locker area of their own — the quiet piece of furniture behind the open floor.
02 · Kōjimachi, Tokyo
SOLUTION & TECHNOLOGY
The locker area
The locker area is where people stop on the way in and on the way out.
Read the SOLUTION & TECHNOLOGY office →
03 · Nagatachō, Tokyo
MITSUBISHI RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Lockers
A medical room with a nurse on duty, and a mothers’ room for staff with young children, finish the floor, along with the lockers that free address requires.
Read the MITSUBISHI RESEARCH INSTITUTE office →
04 · Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo
INFOTEC
The locker room
A counter bar with a coffee machine and a fridge takes the social events, and lockers and a hanger room take the coats that a Tokyo winter brings.
Read the INFOTEC office →
05 · Tokyo
MUJI
The lockers
Staff keep asking how the workplace could be better and keep changing it.
Read the MUJI office →
06 · Tokyo
Expedia Japan
Lockers for free address
The work floor is free address: bags go into lockers and everyone picks a seat each morning, so a chance conversation with a neighbour can start a new idea.
Read the Expedia Japan office →
07 · Bunkyo, Tokyo
MARUBENI I-DIGIO
Lockers and booths on DOCK
Each floor carries the name of a landscape — a garden, a dock, an island — and the fit-out follows the name: planting through one floor, banks of lockers and booths on another, curved seating on the third.
Read the MARUBENI I-DIGIO office →
09 · Marunouchi, Chiyoda, Tokyo
DELOITTE TOUCHE TOHMATSU
The lockers
A corridor of lockers serves the floor, because the desks are not assigned.
Read the DELOITTE TOUCHE TOHMATSU office →
Questions
About this collection
Which offices in Japan feature in “Lockers & changing rooms”?
WALL has picked 11: ECO RING (Himeji, Hyogo), SOLUTION & TECHNOLOGY (Kōjimachi, Tokyo), MITSUBISHI RESEARCH INSTITUTE (Nagatachō, Tokyo), INFOTEC (Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo), MUJI (Tokyo), Expedia Japan (Tokyo), MARUBENI I-DIGIO (Bunkyo, Tokyo), THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Nagoya), DELOITTE TOUCHE TOHMATSU (Marunouchi, Chiyoda, Tokyo), FOURDIGIT (Aoyama, Tokyo), STELLA CHEMIFA (Sakai, Osaka).
Where in Japan are these offices?
They are spread across 4 places: Tokyo (8), Hyogo (1), Nagoya (1), Osaka (1).
Can I visit these offices?
Most are private workplaces and not open to the public. WALL reports on them from the companies’ own published material; each office page links to its source.
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Booth seating
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