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Office · Kanda, Tokyo · Education & tech

Bizmates — Kanda: meeting rooms named after cities its teachers live in

Bizmates teaches business English online with teachers in the Philippines and beyond. When it pulled two scattered offices into one building in 2024, it named the meeting rooms after world cities and built a rest room that doubles as a prayer room.

Company Bizmates, Inc. (ビズメイツ)Location Daiwa Akihabara Building 11F and 12F, 2-19-23 Kanda-Sudachō, Chiyoda, TokyoMoved in 9 September 2024Concept EN11F Entrance, Biz Lounge, Mates Cafe, meeting rooms, online booths, studio12F Work space, president’s room, open meeting space, pantry, rest roomWebsite recruit.bizmates.co.jp ↗
The Biz Lounge
The Biz Lounge

Concept

Two offices, one building, one word

The move brought together business units that had been split across two locations, to strengthen the links between them. The company went through its complaints about the old office, collected what staff said, and worked with a design firm on what a space would need so that everyone could work comfortably, live the company’s values, produce something across business lines, and keep taking on challenges.

What came out is a floor split in two: eleven for meeting and talking, twelve for working. The rooms for meeting are named after cities.

The entrance
The entrance
The lounge
The lounge

01 · Entrance and Biz Lounge

A stage at the door

The eleventh floor opens onto the entrance and the Biz Lounge, which is sized for company-wide events.

The entrance
The entrance
The lounge with its screen
The lounge with its screen

02 · Mates Cafe

A long counter

The café area runs as a long timber counter under a slatted ceiling, alongside tables.

The café counter
The café counter

03 · Meeting rooms

Paris, New York, Nairobi, Sydney

Ten meeting rooms line a corridor, each carrying the name of a world city — which for a company whose teachers and colleagues are spread across the world is a way of putting the map on the wall.

The corridor of rooms
The corridor of rooms
A meeting room
A meeting room

04 · Online booths and studio

Eight booths, and a set

Eight booths take the online lessons and calls. A filming studio sits beside them for the company’s own video.

The online booths
The online booths
The studio
The studio

05 · Work space

The twelfth floor

Above, the work space runs along the windows with meeting rooms at the end, and a pantry with coffee machines where the floor stops for a moment.

The work space
The work space
A meeting room
A meeting room
The pantry
The pantry
CompanyBizmates, Inc.
Design[to confirm]
Photography© Bizmates, Inc. (from the company’s own recruiting site)
SourceBizmates, “Office relocation” (30 September 2024), re-reported by WALL ↗
PublishedSeptember 2026
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