JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICES
Concept
“Draw out what the building can still do”
The company describes its own office in two lines: an office that draws out the possibilities of the building and carries it into a new era, and a seamless design that makes use of the outline of the space.
In practice that means the floor is not chopped into rooms. Desks are free address — you sit where the day suggests — and the edges between working, meeting and resting are left soft rather than walled.
01 · Work floor
Sit where the day suggests
Nobody owns a desk. The floor is laid out so that a person can move between a quiet seat, a shared table and a short meeting without booking anything.
02 · Meeting
Rooms and half-rooms
Meeting space runs from proper rooms to open tables, so the size of the talk decides where it happens.
03 · Between the two
The seams
The design deliberately keeps the seams between areas open, which is what the company means by working with the outline of a space rather than against it.
04 · The lounge
A curation lounge on the third floor
Three floors below the office is HIBIYA CENTRAL THE LOUNGE. It is described as a curation lounge: every so often a curator sets a theme and the work of someone who has gone deep into that field is put on display, so that visitors meet something they did not know.
It is open on weekdays from 8:45 to 19:00, runs as a café until 17:30 and as a bar after that, and anyone may come and go. There are power sockets, free Wi-Fi, and food and drink are allowed.
05 · For staff
Free drinks next door
For employees the lounge doubles as the company kitchen: drinks there are free to staff.
