JAPAN'S WORKPLACES
Concept
A new WORK × LIFE
Rakuten’s phrase is “move the world with an entirely new WORK × LIFE”. Crimson House concentrates the company’s long-held obsession with the working environment into one building. Its design was argued out between chief creative director Kashiwa Sato and chairman Hiroshi Mikitani until the whole building shared one language: simplicity and comfort. The building is fully barrier-free.
01 · Reception
A showroom of Rakuten Ichiba furniture
The main entrance opens into a lobby large enough for a quick meeting. The lounge that leads to the visitor rooms is wood-toned and quiet. The visitor meeting rooms themselves are each furnished by a different furniture merchant from the Rakuten Ichiba marketplace, so the floor reads like a showroom. Guests are entertained at the Rakuten Crimson Club over lunch or dinner, and the building also houses Rakuten University, which teaches marketplace sellers how to run an online shop.
02 · Workspace
No partitions
Desks have no partitions, so “shall we talk about it now?” is always possible. Electric sit-stand desks are standard company-wide, and video-conference systems at desks and in rooms let staff around the world work as if under one roof.
03 · Meeting rooms
Asakai, every week since 1997
The symbol of internal communication is Asakai, the company-wide morning meeting held weekly since the company was founded in 1997 and now linking more than fifty offices in Japan and abroad by video. Around the floors are open meeting spots with whiteboards, and a lecture hall for large briefings and training.
04 · Cafeteria & events
Same rice, same pot
The cafeteria began with the wish that staff “eat from the same pot”. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are free, with more than ten dishes a day — pasta, curry, udon and soba, set meals, grill — on a high floor with a view over Tokyo, with sit-stand tables and priority seats. A café sits beside it, and the Rakuten Crimson Store, an in-house convenience store, bakes its own bread.
05 · Welfare
Gym, clinic, nursery
Rakuten Fitness Club & Spa has a gym, spa, massage and acupuncture, and showers. Rakuten Clinic is in the building for anyone feeling unwell. Rakuten Golden Kids, the in-house nursery, runs English, science experiments and outdoor play. Lifts, handrails, tactile paving and multi-purpose toilets on every floor make the building usable by everyone.
