BOAT RACE Shinkōkai — Roppongi: meeting rooms named after races, and one for each of the six colours

Concept

Six colours, six wakes, and a building named for both

In boat racing the six boats in a heat are identified by colour — white, black, red, blue, yellow, green — and every spectator learns to read the field by them before learning a single name. The foundation has taken that system indoors. One meeting room is built from the six colours. The building itself is called SIX WAKE, after the six lines the boats draw on the water.

The other meeting rooms are named after the big races, GRAND CHAMPIONSHIP among them. It is a small, cheap, effective piece of internal branding: nobody who works here books “Room 4”. And it solves the problem every promoter of a sport has in its own head office, which is that the sport is somewhere else. Here it is in the room-booking system.

01 · The entrance hall

A void, and the sound of water

The main entrance carries the sound of water, which the foundation says is meant to bring the racing to mind. Inside, the hall is a full-height void under a moulded white ceiling; a gate at the far end leads to the lifts and the office floors.

02 · The meeting rooms

Glazed, and named after races

The meeting rooms are glazed, so the corridor reads as one continuous space. Each has a monitor and an air purifier. The names come from the big races — GRAND CHAMPIONSHIP and the rest.

03 · The six colours

White, black, red, blue, yellow, green

One room is built from the six colours the boats carry. In a field of six, the colour is how a spectator follows the race; in the office, it is how you know which room you are in.

04 · The lounge

Family-restaurant booths

The lounge takes short discussions and lunch. The box seats along the glazing are known internally as the family-restaurant booths and are used as much for concentrating as for eating, with the city on the other side of the glass.

05 · SIX WAKE HALL

Four hundred seats, and a broadcast

The hall holds around four hundred and is described by the foundation as a base for transmitting the appeal of the sport. Events and programme recordings happen here, and the live coverage of the big races goes out from it.

06 · The café

Verve, on the ground floor

A branch of Verve Coffee Roasters, the California roaster with shops in Shinjuku and Kamakura, is attached to the building. The foundation notes that it draws a good many visitors from outside, which is the point of putting it there.