Firm： tomomi kito architect & associates

Type： Commercial › Office

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2018

This is the interior design project for a new Arup’s office in Tokyo.

Arup’s staff designed their own office and also managed the relocation project by themselves. Tomomi Kito lead the project as one of team member in Arup.

Before commencing design, a questionnaire on workplace for all staff was conducted. The result showed that they hope for a “well-being” office which allows them to work comfortably, while representing Arup’s brand and culture.

* “Core” and “Place”

The office features “Core”, a centred large volume, and “Place”, a surrounding space.

“Core” serves as a core of innovation that facilitates communication, socialisation, collaboration as well as concentration, where meeting rooms, a refreshment space, a giant working table and teleconference booths are contained. “Core” is enclosed by bookshelves so as to represent a hub of innovation while the various openings on the bookshelves provide an adequate sense of distance and openness. Engineers and consultants can feel adjacent activities and atmosphere through the openings. The bookshelves containing documents on the completed projects, company journals and architectural/design magazines act as a catalyst for innovation providing engineers inspiration.

“Place” is a field where engineers and consultants develop and implement the innovation, including personal and collaborative workspace. “Place” is carefully designed to ensure comfortable view and circulation of the whole office, and to offer a variety of spaces. Approximately half of the seats have been prepared as hot desks, which is laid out along the building’s façade with comfortable view and various furnishing. Hot desks are also acting as a place for active communication amongst staff as they are situated along the office circulation.

* IoT for “well-being”

“Well-being” is also promoted by state-of-the-art technology, Internet of Things (IoT).

A lot of IoT sensors are placed in the office to gather various data including the number of people, room temperature, CO2 concentration, and noise level of each area.

It is expected to utilize the data to continuously improve the office environment in the future, analysing it with measured data of weather, natural light, artificial light and staff’s autonomic nervous system. The data is also presented in real time within office, which assists engineers to find a comfortable working space.

Entertainment contents for our visitors using IoT are also provided including interactive display at the entrance using a face recognition system. As a part of digitalization approach, visitors are also able to experience Arup’s projects through Virtual Reality (VR).

* Arup’s “well-being”

Skilful experts pursuing the quality of work and sustaining the organization, this is our organisational goal as stated in The Key Speech by the founder, Ove Arup. This, in essence, is the “well-being” for Arup and the origin of its brand and culture. This new office is the project to realize the Arup’s "well-being" by our own staff.