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Architects: Fumiko Takahama Architects
- Area: 4245 m²
- Year: 2024
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Photographs: Takumi Ota
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Lead Architects: Fumiko Takahama, Tomohiko Komatsu
Text description provided by the architects. This project is a relocation of the Tokyo headquarters of JINS HOLDINGS, an eyewear brand with more than 700 shops in Japan and abroad. The new building is a nine-story building scheduled for demolition in three years' time. It was rented entirely and fully renovated based on two concepts: "Create space by demolishing" and " Museum x Office." The "Create space by demolishing" means creating spaces with a subtractive design, stripping off finishes, and opening up holes in the slab while minimizing the amount of new construction as much as possible, considering decarbonization. The rough space that emerges from this process provides workers with a proactive environment where they can improve their work area by devising new ways of working, rather than a passive environment in which everything is set for them. The Museum x Office is intended to reconfigure the space generated by literally demolishing parts of the building as a place where the ideas and creativity of the people can be stimulated, like an art museum.
On the 5th to 8th floors, the main work area, a new atrium has been created by drilling holes in the slabs. This large atrium, named "Open Art Tube," has a new internal staircase, a glass handrail with prismatic laminated sheets, and the innovative art piece "Fabbrica dell' Aria®" from Italy, which purifies the air by using plants as biofilters. This not only creates communication across floors and a sense of unity as an office but also makes the entire atrium a piece of art.
On the second floor, we placed "HAPAPPA (a field in Japanese)," an open space where everyone can gather. To use HARAPPA freely according to the ideas of people who use it just like a field, we designed a folding bench called a “seed bench” (design registered). The 200 seed benches are embedded in the existing OA floor and can be raised and lowered to create a flat open space, a seated event space, a meeting space, and a space to take a break, creating a different landscape in each case.
On the ground floor, the openings facing the street are replaced with folding doors that can be fully opened to provide a working place exposed to the city and outside air. The ONCA COFFEE, a café that can also be used by visitors from outside, has also been added to create a local relationship. Other inspiring and creative working spaces include a gallery on the 3rd floor in front of external conference rooms and a Finnish sauna on the 9th floor, exclusively for employees to refresh their minds and bodies and encourage communication between colleagues. In this time-limited headquarters, employees will test various new ways of working to be more creative and hopefully manage to regain the venture spirit, which is the original aim of this new headquarters.
