PSP — Shinagawa: the 25th floor, arranged in arches

Concept

A floor with no corners in it

Almost nothing on this floor meets at a right angle. The entrance wall curves away from the lift lobby. The lounge is a long white sweep with a screen set into it. A row of booths is cut into a wall as a series of arches, lit from within, so that the working side of the floor reads as an arcade rather than a corridor. Even the lighting is circular — rings and discs, not the usual grid of troffers.

It is an expensive way to build and an easy one to get wrong, and the reason it works here is restraint elsewhere. The palette is white, pale timber and a soft green; the furniture is plain; the planting is used in long low runs rather than as specimen pots. The curves are allowed to be the only thing happening.

01 · The entrance

Off the lift lobby

The entrance is a dark recessed wall with a screen set into it, opening onto the pale floor beyond. Shinagawa Season Terrace puts the office twenty-five storeys up, and the daylight arrives from three sides.

02 · The arches

Booths cut into the wall

A run of arched openings is cut into the wall along one side of the floor, each lit from within and holding a seat. It is the room the company leads with, and the one that makes the floor recognisable from any photograph of it.

03 · The lounges

Round tables, round lights

Two lounge areas: one under a ring of light with pale round tables, one laid over timber flooring with a mix of chairs and low seating. Both are placed against the glazing rather than in the centre of the plan.

04 · The working floor

Tables, and a great deal of green

The working areas are tables rather than desk banks, divided by long planters. A high table sits against the window; another group of tables runs under the exposed dark ceiling.

05 · Meeting

By the window, and at dusk

Meeting tables are set along the glazing, so that a discussion happens with the city behind it. The same corner at dusk is one of the few dark pictures in the set.

06 · The quiet end

A corridor, and four booths

At the far end a dark corridor runs past a planted corner, and a group of four single-person booths stands free of the wall — the floor’s answer to a call that should not be taken at a table.