The client for this filigree-façade building by Amano Design, located in Ginza Central Street of Tokyo is a developer company. The company purchased a long-sought after lot in Ginza, and planned to build a commercial, office building. The atmosphere is quite different from the gorgeous Central Street, and the site is on an empty street which is often seen behind the street with large-sized buildings. Attracting as many people as possible into such a street is our task. As they state in Amano Design Office, the client desired the building to be a gorgeous existence. In addition, the designer desired to provide a “slight feeling of strangeness” to the passersby that would attract them to the building.

Due to the fact that the street scenery is hectic, a double skin structure for the façade is employed, consisting of glass curtain walls and graphically treated aluminum punched metal. The façade therefore becomes a part of the interior decoration and obviates the need for window treatments such as blinds or curtains. By using a double skin, reduction of the air conditioning load and the glass cleaning burden was also intended.

The irregular façade design was determined by computing a design to avoid arbitrary forms and to approximate forms in nature. At Amano Design they believed that a well-made incidental form would likely be a less-disagreeable design. In the neighborhood of mostly modernist architecture with horizontal and vertical or geometric shapes, the building has a proper feeling of strangeness, attracts special attention, and has an appeal as a commercial building. The abstract flower graphic is used to balance the impression of the façade.