JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICES
Concept
A road, an inside and an outside
The workspace is built in three parts. A route the firm calls the michi — road — loops around two levels in one unbroken line; the window side of it is the soto, the outside; the core side is the uchi, the inside.
The two sides are deliberately unequal. The inside is standard office specification, furnished in neutral greys, while the outside carries the variety and the openness — so that the space the firm considers the core of the office is the one that stands out.
The route begins at reception, where the view runs straight at Tokyo Tower. The wall behind the desk is built from wooden pieces cut in the shape of the company mark: many individual pieces making one figure.
01 · Minna no Hiroba
The square everyone crosses
A stair joins the two levels through the square that gives the floor its name.
02 · think ++ Library
Shelves in the middle of the work
The library sits inside the working floor rather than beside it.
03 · Michi
The road that makes the loop
The road is the part that makes the plan legible: walk it and you pass every part of the office once.
04 · Department and project bases
Two ways of belonging
The floor carries two kinds of base — one for the department you belong to, one for the project you are on.
05 · Museum and biophilic area
What the firm has built, and what grows
The museum keeps the firm’s own work on show, and the biophilic area brings planting and daylight into the working floor.
