JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICES01 · The short answer
The small talk is the plan, not an accident
The modern Japanese office is designed to make people bump into each other. At HAKUHODO the coffee counter is the mechanism.
“Biz Cafe sells coffee, smoothies and light meals, and staff of every department and every year of service gather here. The company says small talk here often turns into work.” The café opens onto an open space anyone can use across team lines.
02 · And then a room to be alone
Cybozu keeps a space with no stated purpose
The same offices keep somewhere to go quiet. Cybozu, which sells teamwork software and builds its floors around it, adds one room that does nothing.
“A relax space rounds out the floor — because an office built for teamwork also needs a place to be quietly alone.”
03 · Silence as an option on the menu
apparel-web plans the floor as a set of choices
Because most of apparel-web works remotely, the office was planned as options rather than a seating chart: a conventional work area, a salon where you can put your own music on, and private rooms for the days that need silence.
04 · Seats reserved for concentration
TAISEI DESIGN and LINE Yahoo name the quiet places
TAISEI DESIGN sets aside solo-work seats for work that needs quiet. At LINE Yahoo’s Akasaka office the enclosed STUDY ROOM is where people go when the work needs it, with the open CONNECT HUB for everything else.
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