MSOL — Akasaka: ten meeting rooms, and no two papered the same

Concept

An office for the days you are not at the client’s

MSOL says the thing out loud that most consultancies leave implicit: its people are normally working at the client’s site, and the office is quiet. It fills up for internal meetings, and then it is noisy. An office built on that assumption does not need a great many desks. It needs somewhere to put a large number of people who have not seen each other for a fortnight.

So the Tokyo floor is mostly meeting rooms — ten of them, chosen by headcount and purpose, plus a seminar room for twenty to thirty — and the company has taken the trouble to paper and furnish every one differently. Dark stone in one, a printed wall in another, pale timber in a third. Ten identical rooms would be cheaper and would make the building unreadable. Ten different ones give a firm of visitors somewhere to mean when they say “the usual room”.

01 · Reception

The mark, and then the room

The mark on the reception wall stands, the company says, for going beyond the conventional bounds of management. The reception itself is deliberately large — a dark, low-lit room with seating, rather than a counter and a corridor.

02 · The meeting rooms

Ten, and each one papered differently

Ten meeting rooms in Tokyo, selected by number of people and by purpose. The company notes that the wallpaper and the fittings differ in each. The set runs from a pale room with a single screen to a dark one lined in patterned paper.

03 · More of them

Including the seminar room

The rest of the Tokyo meeting rooms, among them the seminar room fitted out for training groups of twenty to thirty and a boardroom in pale timber.

04 · The refresh room

Lit the other way on purpose

The refresh room takes work, breaks and discussions. The company states the reasoning plainly: so that you can change your mood, it is kept different in atmosphere from the working and meeting rooms — bright, and based on white.

05 · Kansai

Opened in 2024

The Kansai office opened in 2024. The mark is on the reception wall as in Tokyo; the working room is free address, and the company notes that here the distance between departments and between client accounts is shorter still.

06 · Chubu

No partitions, and more of them

The Chubu reception is held down in colour for a calmer welcome. The working room is free address and deliberately without partitions; the company extended the floor in 2024 as the branch grew.