JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICESConcept
Take the telephones out, and see what the floor becomes
One decision explains most of this office. There are no telephones on the working floor. If a call has to be made it is made in a booth in the corridor, and the result is a working floor that stays quiet enough for the desks to be open.
Everything noisy is therefore somewhere else, and the somewhere else is generous: a whole floor given to the café, with low sofas and box seats and a raised tatami bay that doubles as the stage when the company holds an event. A games corner that fills up after work. A soundproofed room where the music and the sound effects are made. And a library where the shelves carry both reference books and the studio’s own past work — which is the part of a games company that is hardest to keep and easiest to lose.
01 · The entrance
A sign, and a system
The entrance carries the two names — Happy Elements and Cacalia Studio — on a dark wall, with a reception system beside it for calling whoever you have come to see. The meeting rooms for visitors are immediately inside.
02 · The café
One floor, several ways to sit
The café takes a floor to itself. Along it are low sofas built close to the ground, window armchairs, box seats for a meeting, and a raised bay laid in tatami that is used as a stage at company events. A vending machine made for the company’s own character unit stands against one wall, and the shelving carries the Cacalia Studio name.
03 · Library and terrace
Books that are theirs, and air
The library holds specialist books and manga along with work the studio has made before. Each floor has a terrace, planted, with power under the tables so that it counts as somewhere to work.
04 · The working floor
Quiet, by design
The desks are open, with a green wall along one side and personal things allowed on the surfaces. There are no telephones; calls go to booths in the corridor. Chairs are a choice of two.
05 · The rooms
Painted like a landscape
The meeting rooms run from plain white to walls painted as bands of colour — a mountain range in section, in yellow and green.
