Hakuten — Kyobashi: an office that kept the last tenant’s fit-out

Concept

Connected to more than people

The company started from a complaint about its own industry: an office of pure function is dull, a communication space that forces people together feels like a wall, and an entrance with the company name above a row of benches is faintly suffocating.

So it listed what an office is actually connected to — society and the street, clients and partners, the team, and the company’s own history and back catalogue — and gave each of them a place. The entrance shows a changing display of the present rather than the company’s name. The work floor is ringed by communication areas a few steps away. The café doubles as an events space, run like a town square.

Each area is run by the staff who use it, and the company treats the whole floor as something to observe: watch where conversation happens when people can choose, then adjust.

01 · Entrance

A showcase, changing

The way in is given over to a display that is meant to keep changing with the times rather than to announce the company.

02 · Work floor

Communication a few steps away

Around the desks sit small areas for talking, close enough that using one is not a decision.

03 · Library and quiet rooms

For looking, and for concentrating

The floor keeps places to look things up and places to be alone with the work.

04 · Café and square

Rest and events in one room

The café is the multi-purpose room: lunch on an ordinary day, an event when the company needs one.

05 · Views

Twenty floors up, over Kyobashi

The floor keeps its windows clear, so the city stays part of the room.