Japan's Makoto Yamaguchi Design has completed a headquarters in Tokyo for a game production company inspired by elements of video games.
It faces the site of an elevated railway, through which trains pass every 1.5 minutes on average in both directions, and is planned with sloping walls that respond to environmental factors such as light, wind and sound.
The height of all inclined walls throughout the building is optimized according to the requirements of each floor. For example, the walls on the third floor have been raised to ensure that the recording studio is not affected by external noise. Meanwhile, as the plan rises, the height of the sloping walls decreases, opening up views of the surrounding city.
“The diagonal walls protect the interior from the outside view, and from the outside it's hard to tell what the building is for,'' Yamaguchi explains. “The lack of purpose is the same in natural landscapes. The sloping walls are made of thin aluminum sheets 10 centimeters wide, a material relatively familiar to humans. Build large buildings in large modules. Instead, we brought together smaller scales to create larger scales. This approach reflects the way nature forms and grows.”
Areas primarily used by visitors are on the lower floors, with increased privacy and secrecy as the tower rises. There will be a theater and studios on the second and third floors facing the adjacent overpass, and a dining room, lounge and gym on the fifth floor. The seventh floor is reserved for executives to use for creative work or meetings with important guests, and the rooftop features a barbecue counter and pool.
Landscape design and interior and exterior finishes are designed to incorporate game references such as game settings, regions, characters, and items. The references are included as metaphors and can be deciphered by those familiar with the game. “In other words, the headquarters building itself is a game,” the team says, citing examples such as a medieval French chandelier, a modern Italian sofa, and a bonsai tree.
“We aim to be a place for the highest level of creativity that attracts fans from all over the world, and a place that supports the foundations of game production,” Yamaguchi says of the project. “As almost all of our staff members will only be engaged in creative work, we focused on a balance between concentration and relaxation while significantly reducing the workload.'' The slanted walls, which are a distinctive feature of the exterior, and all equipment, including security, can be viewed on a tablet. We introduced a management system and worked hard to achieve this goal.
