Deloitte Tohmatsu — Marunouchi Nijubashi: a room called the Greenhouse

Concept

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 · 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.

02 · 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. Meeting and reception rooms elsewhere on the floor run from a Board Room seating more than sixty down to small internal rooms.

03 · The working area

Patterned ceiling, open floor

The working floor runs under a patterned ceiling. A corridor of lockers serves the floor, because the desks are not assigned.

04 · Refresh

A counter on the floor

A café counter serves the floor.