Calyon Japan

Reception Hall with market ticker.

Project details

• Project Name: Calyon Japan
• Location of Site: Tokyo. Japan
• Design Team: George Dasic; Shunichi Tajima; Benigna Iwasaki, Reiko Fukushi; Tamaki Suzuki
• Project Type: Office interior
• Client: Calyon Japan
• Contractor/s: Sumitomo R & D
• Built-up Area: 5000 sq m
• Date of completion: November, 2004

Room configuration allows for the glimpses of Tokyo skyline.

Words from the architect

The Program called for a trading room, back office; communications rooms, clients and conference center, reception area plus associated infrastructure.

The layout and the positions of the important spaces were dictated by unique position of the building. On one side it looks on central Tokyo with Mount Fuji's silhouette on the horizon. In the evening it is often possible to see amazing purple or blood red sunsets. On the other side it looks on to Hama-rikyu Park, which is regarded as one of the finest example of Edo-period Japanese Gardens in Tokyo.

Internal cladding was done using Vectogramm panels.

The program called for a large number of rooms organized around internal corridors. We began to think of the "corridors" as "streets" and of the rooms being physically separated as "buildings". Investment banking requires confidentiality and this solution also led to the elimination of sound leakage from adjacent rooms as well as drastically limiting noise transfer through the air conditioning systems.

As a result we started viewing the spaces as free standing "glass objects" with interconnected play of forms and proportions. This led to an extensive "play" of moving "objects" around the plate in order to find an ideal solution which would satisfy two main objectives: 1. Functional hierarchy of the required spaces and 2. Proportional relations between different "objects".

Each room has double skin providing for a full sound insulation as well as sculptural floor topography.

While looking for the materials to use for the walls we came across a new, intriguing technology developed by a small but creative German company from Darmstadt, P+P Holzbau, called Vectogramm. It is a technology which allows an image (text, picture, drawing...) to be digitally transferred to a special "cutting' mechanism which can engrave images on to almost any surface.

Vectogramm becomes “alive” with the sun and light.

We developed a concept where all the surfaces would be "imprinted" with a "pattern", a kind of "digital wall paper". In a way this brought a kind of French baroque aesthetic into Japanese feeling of light and minimalism. The motif we selected was based on the ivy that covers houses in Paris.

Board room has spectacular sunset views.

There are three distinctive functional zones that governed space configuration. Majority of the space is dedicated to offices. The largest room is the trading floor which houses heavy technology. Third, and for us the most interesting space was visitors and conference centers.

Credits

• Text: George Dasic Architects
• Photographs: Peter Cook