JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICESConcept
A room with a facilitator attached
Most large firms have a room they call the innovation space, and most of the time it is a whiteboard and some beanbags. Deloitte Tohmatsu’s Greenhouse comes with a job description. It runs in Deloitte offices in twenty-four countries; it uses frameworks the firm developed itself; and the session is led by a specialist facilitator whose work is to test a client’s assumptions rather than to record what is said. The room is the smaller half of the offer.
It sits inside the group’s flagship office in the Marunouchi Nijubashi Building, occupied in stages between November 2018 and February 2019. The rest of the floor runs the expected range, from a Board Room for more than sixty down to rooms for three or four — but the Greenhouse is the one that has a method attached to it, and it is where the office stops being a place to sit and starts being a tool.
01 · Marunouchi
The district, and the bridge
The building stands in Marunouchi, which the firm describes as holding the composure of the business district together with the brand stores and restaurants around it.
02 · Reception
One, and seventeen
The ground-floor entrance is heavy-stoned and deliberately generous; the reception on 17 is the one designed to carry the group brand.
03 · Meeting rooms
Sixty, or four
Meeting and reception rooms run from a Board Room seating more than sixty down to small internal rooms, so the space can be matched to the meeting.
04 · Greenhouse
Where the method lives
The innovation facility Deloitte runs in twenty-four countries: interactive, test-based sessions led by a specialist facilitator, working from frameworks the firm developed itself.
05 · The working area
Patterned ceiling, open floor
The working floor runs under a patterned ceiling, with booths at its edge for calls.
06 · Refresh
A counter, and a seminar room
A café counter serves the floor, and a seminar room in green sits alongside it.
