JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICES01 · The short answer
An enclosed place inside an open plan
Japanese offices went open-plan and then had to put the private conversation somewhere. SoftBank’s Takeshiba headquarters shows the two halves of the answer on one floor.
“Internal meeting rooms are glass-walled to keep the office open and conversations visible. For remote calls or confidential talk there are single-person phone booths — enclosed places inside an open plan.”
02 · The booth is for the other person
Mercari built them so the office can meet the people at home
At Mercari’s CultureHub the booths exist for the colleagues who are not there: they let people in the office join calls with remote teammates without leaving the open floor. The floor itself is arranged so you cannot cross it without passing someone.
03 · Twenty-eight of them, with a rule
MIXI’s Deep Zone bans talking outright
MIXI’s 2024 renovation added the Deep Zone: 28 half-enclosed booths with dimmed light, dual 4K or ultra-wide curved monitors, and a strict no-talking, no-eating rule. Phone booths sit nearby, so the talking has somewhere else to go.
04 · At scale
More than 180 rooms and booths, so a call never takes a room
Sansan’s four work floors are entirely free address, and each one carries meeting rooms, private booths for web meetings and “family-restaurant” booths for casual talks — more than 180 rooms and booths in all.
NEC Solution Innovators states the reasoning as a design rule, repeated at every site: enclosed booths for web meetings, so a call does not take a room.
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