JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICES
Concept
Real and remote, held together
The institute has rebuilt its office around a working pattern it calls the new normal: free address, booths for video calls, areas made to encourage people to talk, and the equipment to run a meeting with half the room present and half of it at home. Most meetings now run that way.
The stated aim is that the individual keeps their autonomy and their difference, and can still work through whatever stage of life they are in. The floor is the argument for it.
01 · Communication areas
From two people to a hundred
Every floor carries meeting equipment for anything from a pair to more than a hundred people, used for meetings, for chat and for drinks after hours. At lunchtime a balanced bento is sold there, so it doubles as where people eat. One area holds a large collection of books, used before work and after it.
02 · Work floor
Choose the desk
The working floor is free address — come in and take whichever desk suits. Small-group settings are scattered through it so that a quick conversation does not need a booking.
03 · Meeting rooms and booths
For the other half of the call
Rooms for meetings with people outside the company sit behind glass along one edge of the floor. Demand for video calls has grown, so telecom booths were added.
04 · The focus room
Four things you may not do
The room the institute calls the focus room exists for solo work, and the rules are the point: no private talking, no mobile phone use, no web meetings and no eating, so that creativity, quality of work and productivity are supported rather than assumed. The aroma in the room changes with the season, which is described as a relaxation effect.
05 · Reception
A room that explains the company
Because the institute hosts committees, briefings for the press and accelerator programmes, the reception area carries a space that introduces what it publishes and what it is working on.
06 · Care
A nurse, and a room for mothers
A medical room with a nurse on duty, and a mothers’ room for staff with young children, finish the floor, along with the lockers that free address requires.
