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Main use: Welfare facilities
Building area: 1,880m2
Total floor area: 2,579m2

Casio Kofu Welfare Facilities was planned as a shared public space between two existing Casio group companies. The building was required to be a “Connector” to join the south and north wings as well as providing pleasant environment and functions for the staff. The building overlooking the natural beauty of the southern Japan Alps was designed with these keywords in mind, “Passage” and “Continuity”.

Location:
Aozora Bank Data Center, 3F
Fuchu-shi, Tokyo
Client: Aozora Bank, Ltd.
Size: 2,230 sqm
PAE Service:
Interior Design, Mechanical Design, Electrical Design, Engineering Construction Drawings, and Project Management.
Program: The client wanted to convert a sterile datacenter into a creative work environment that encourages collaboration and the free exchange of ideas. The floor supports a project-based organization which involves staff rotation every few months. A ring of project rooms separates individual workstations from the central open meeting area. Wall graphics activate the office area and common circulation spaces. Exposed ceiling, casual seating, and indirect lighting set a comfortable backdrop for social and intellectual interaction among employees. The program also includes an open snack bar and locker facilities.

Name:
Clean Energy Factory Headquarters
Location: Nemuro, Japan
Use:
company headquarters with dormitory for 17 employees for a wind farm company Reinforced steel structure
Gross Floor Area: 2,274.80 sqm
Foot print area: 1,668.33 sqm
2 levels above and 1 level below grade, 1 level penthouse
Design:
RTKL International Limited (Hisaya Sugiyama; chief designer, Yoshiko Narafu; interior designer, Masako Kawamoto; designer, Natsuki Nishino; designer, Sachiko Miyake; designer, Kunihiko Kochi; designer)
Architect of Record:
Ishimoto Kenchiku Jimusho Sapporo Office (Yasuo Tsutsubuchi, project architect)
Construction: Takenaka Komuten Sapporo Office

This project is a formation of two different buildings; the main building has a limestone curtainwall façade of slit-windows that angles rhythmically like a folding screen, and in contrast to this, the smaller corner building is an entirely glass volume. Together with its very prominent neighboring building, Prada, the buildings form a core complex for the Miyuki Dori area. The corner building, surrounded by its larger neighbors, is set off as a centerpiece
and creates a very strong identity for the complex as a whole and for the Minami Aoyama area as well.

The different appearance of the two buildings helps to enhance their relationship; the main building’s limestone façade creates a cohesive background to contrast with the entirely glass surfaces of the corner building, while also revealing activity of the shops behind through its slit windows. By dividing the project into two buildings, this provided the opportunity to create an open plaza space in the center. This space creates an extra circulation zone at this central intersection, pulling people through the complex, and making a dynamic space at the tenant’s entry space. As people pass through, the intent is to evoke a response through the impact of the building design, and create interest in entering.

Set beside the stoic blue crystal volume of the Prada building, the warm yellow limestone façade changes with the moving perspective as people walk by. With this contrast, the intent is to ultimately compliment the surrounding buildings by creating an animated street experience.

Also in China, the state of the aquarium is going to change from a kind of an amusement park to the type of an institution for the study of living thing and to experience the environment with ecology exhibition from the rise of the consciousness to environmental protection.
This aquarium which will be opened in 2008 in the suburbs of Chengdu in Sichuan is constituted by distributing pavilions to each of a tropical zone and a frigid zone, and it is planned so that it may become a park which the whole should say also as an environmental interactive exhibit institution taking advantage of the site of 55,000 m2. The dolphin hall, which is performed with the all weather type indoor exhibition institution and can accommodate 2,500 spectators, is located in the center of the site, and not only for the dolphin shows but also for the ecological exhibition of dolphins.

 

 




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