JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICESConcept
A trading company that decided to be visible
The company set out the brief for the renewal in three words that do not translate cleanly: a miseru office — an office that shows. Not an office that is shown to visitors, but one that is doing the showing.
The plan is glazed from the entrance all the way through to the desks, so that the whole floor reads at once, and the first object a visitor meets is a cylinder of LED playing video beside the company mark. Further in, a wall of nine screens runs landscape footage across the working area. A trading company sells nothing that can be put on a shelf; it moves chemicals, resins and building materials between other people’s factories. Making the place where that happens visible is a way of giving the business a body.
01 · The entrance
A mark, and a cylinder of light
The NCT mark is set large on the entrance wall, with a cylindrical LED screen beside it playing video — the company’s stated aim being that whoever walks in is surprised and enjoys it.
02 · The reception room
Glass that stops being glass
The reception room doubles as a meeting room, and the glass that divides it is switchable: clear by default, and opaque at the flick of a switch, which turns the room into a closed one without anybody moving.
03 · The working zone
Free address, and a wall of landscape
The desks are free address. Against one side of the floor stands a nine-panel screen running quiet landscape footage — a window, in a room that could not have one there.
04 · Café, pods, and a place to stop
Three registers of not working
The caféteria is furnished for sitting a while rather than eating quickly. The working pods are built for online meetings; beside them, a casual meeting area takes a screen and a discussion. The relaxation area is arranged so that nobody in it is in anybody’s line of sight.
