Panasonic Connect — Hamarikyū: COMMONS, a floor built from pallets and containers to feel like the factory floor

Concept

Workplace reform, chapter two

The company moved its head office from Osaka to Tokyo in 2017 and introduced free seating, removed executive offices and dropped the dress code. That office won the 31st Nikkei New Office Award. Eight years later, the café floor had lost its novelty and was little used, and the meeting rooms were dark and closed.

For “workplace reform, chapter two” the 11th floor, where the lifts change, was rebuilt as COMMONS — a common ground where people meet in many ways under the concept “a connected workplace”.

01 · Factory feel

Not too finished

Customers’ sites and the company’s own factories are expressed with wood pallets, bucket containers and a container store. Concrete-look floors and raw materials keep it “not too finished”, and the furniture moves. A pattern of circles (people) and squares (information and things) — Panasonic Connect’s symbol of new value — appears on the ping-pong net and the sliding wall.

02 · Choices

Make, chat, rest, focus

There is a space for making and sharing food, an open area for lively talk, long sofas, window seats for one, and an event space with movable desks, sofas round them and a raised floor by the windows.

03 · Meeting rooms

Daylight let in

There had been 22 rooms for 6 to 30 people, yet 60% of meetings had four or fewer. Rooms along the windows were removed to make a daylit corridor, and booths for one-to-ones and rooms for four were added.