Nikko — Yotsubashi: an office, and thirty thousand tonnes of pipe behind it

Concept

The cleanest room, and the largest one

Nikko opens its office tour with a sentence about housekeeping. The entrance, it says, is the first thing a visitor sees and therefore connects to the image of the company, so it is cleaned daily and kept uncluttered. That is the whole argument: one room, maintained, standing in for everything behind it.

What is behind it is a wholesaler of steel pipe, and the tour ends where the business actually sits — a warehouse the company says holds thirty thousand tonnes at any time, which it describes as among the largest in the industry. The office is four departments on one floor, busy with telephones and fax; the warehouse is silent and enormous. The tour puts them in the same sequence deliberately.

01 · The entrance

Kept clean on purpose

A wood-lined reception with a display case and a screen. The company states that it is maintained daily, because it is the first thing a visitor sees and therefore stands for the company. The way in from the street is lined in dark timber louvres.

02 · Meeting and reception

A projector, and a plainer room

Partitions between departments are kept to a minimum: at the head office, administration and the Tokyo sales division sit on one floor, and in Osaka four departments are gathered onto a single floor that the company describes as busy with calls and faxes. The Osaka office moved to Yotsubashi, a business district, in February 2020.

Each branch has meeting rooms fitted with a projector and speakers, and video meetings between the sites are routine. The reception room is kept to a simple layout, because its job is to receive guests.

03 · The lounge

Water, coffee, and whatever else

A lounge used for visitors, short discussions and eating, with a water server and a coffee maker. A second free space is used for internal meetings and for new-employee training.

04 · The warehouse

Thirty thousand tonnes

The tour ends in the warehouse, which the company states holds thirty thousand tonnes of stock at all times.