OMA announces the completion of ‘Tenjin Business Center’ a mixed-use office complex spans a total area of 59,480 sqm , in Fukuoka, marking the firm’s ffirst ground-up office building in Japan.

In 1991, OMA was invited as one of six architects to design a housing block (Nexus World Housing) for Arata Isozaki’s masterplan for a “new urban lifestyle” in Fukuoka. 30 years later, Tenjin Business Center signals a newfound ambition for urban renewal and growth.
 
“It’s been a remarkable experience to build in my hometown where the city’s unique culture and identity are held close by its community, but in a moment of transformation catalyzed by an openness to new ideas and people.”
Shohei Shigematsu, OMA Partner.
The building designed by OMA is the first built development of the Tenjin Big Bang initiative,  marking the start of the district’s formation into an Asian business hub and start-up city. The structure comprises a mixed-use office program that includes financial services, retail, and parking.

“The building program is predominantly workspace, within a given massing that is neither low-rise nor tower, so the design was conceived through hyper-focused interventions that subtly merge and connect human and urban scale, two streets of different character, inside and outside, city and nature. The result is an efficient office block with the most memorable corner—an excavation of the building toward more openness.

A Big Bang signifies a starting point, and I hope this gesture will be an invitation for future developments to participate in creating a network of activated intersections and public zones that knit the new district together.”
Shohei Shigematsu.
 


 

Project description by OMA

Fukuoka is the seventh biggest city in Japan, known for its distinct cultural identity. Its central location among major cities of East Asia positions the city as a gateway into Japan, contributing to its standing as the economic center of Kyushu Island. The city has been thriving over the last decade, ranking highly in livability, ratio of younger population, and percentage of start-ups.

Following the Nexus World Housing complex, Tenjin Business Center signals a newfound ambition for urban renewal and growth. It also marks the next generation of collaboration between OMA, the city of Fukuoka, and Fukuoka Jisho. We believe this project was made possible by the fortuitous alignment of three people of the same generation—Shohei Shigematsu, a Fukuoka native; Ichiro Enomoto, the new CEO of Fukuoka Jisho (son of Kazuhiko Enomoto, former CEO who commissioned Nexus World Housing); and mayor Soichiro Takashima.

Tenjin Business Center will be the first development under the mayor’s Tenjin Big Bang initiative to stimulate the district’s formation as an Asian business hub and startup city. We wanted to create a building that is not just a symbol of success but also an incubator and space for discourse that harnesses the energy and activities of the neighborhood. How can we make an office building that suggests a new generation and reflects Fukuoka’s existing urban context?

The site is located at the intersection of two major axes: Meiji-dori—the city’s established avenue of commerce lined with financial offices—and Inabacho-dori—an organic pedestrian corridor linked to the City Hall Plaza and Galleria and lined with intimate cafes. Below ground, the site connects to a subway station and shopping concourse. The building program is predominantly workspace, within a given massing that is neither low-rise nor tower.

Office buildings are often quite sober and withdrawn from public life. The introverted typology internalizes its atriums and lobbies, shrouding its best assets. Our approach was to excavate the façade on the corner of Meiji-dori and Inabacho-dori to articulate the convergence of two different urban activities. This gesture enhances two conditions simultaneously—they reveal the internal activity of the office and draw in public activity at the new entry plaza.

Within the carved out corner is a six-story atrium that reinforces the inside/outside visual connection and draws natural light down to the lower-level concourse linked to the area’s underground pedestrian, retail, and transit network. The excavation is calibrated as three-dimensional pixels that break down the building to a human scale. The pixelated façade forms a series of soffit surfaces above, activated with signage and lighting that reinforce a sense of place at the convergence point.

Setbacks at the opposing upper level provide green terraces for offices. In respect to the nature in the city, we symbolically introduce terraces with panoramic views to the often-overlooked Naka River and Hakata Bay. Together, the two pixelated edges round out the building to create a sense of softness like that of a melting ice cube.

The eroded corners soften the edge between the public domain and the private office building, generating an openness for the activity along Fukuoka’s main civic and commercial thoroughfares. As the first development in the Tenjin Big Bang initiative, we wanted it to set a precedent for the adjacent buildings to come—activated intersections and plazas at each building creating a network of public zones that knit the new district together.

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Architects
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OMA. Partnert architect.- Shohei Shigematsu (OMA’s New York office).
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Design team
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Associate.- Luke Willis. Project Architect.- Takeshi Mitsuda, Joanne Chen, Ted Lin, Mitchell Lorberau, Toru Okada, Daniel Rauchwerger, Sumit Sahdev, Alyssa Murasaki Saltzgaber, Timothy Tse.
COMPETITION. Associate.- Jake Forster. Jackie Woon Bae, Caroline Corbett, Miguel Darcy, Carly Dean, Yusef Ali Dennis, Mitchell Lorberau, Alyssa Murasaki Saltzgaber.
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Collaborators
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Executive Architect (CD-CA).- Maeda Corporation.
Executive Architect (SD-DD).- Nihon Sekkei.
Structure.- Nihon Sekkei, Maeda Corporation.
MEP/FP.- Nihon Sekkei, Maeda Corporation.
Façade Engineers.- Maeda Corporation, Arup Japan.
Interior Design.- Curiosity Inc.
Exterior Lighting.- Lighting Planners Associates.
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Client
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Fukuoka Jisho co., ltd.
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General Contractor
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Maeda Corporation.
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Dates
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2015-2021.
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Area
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59,480 m².
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Venue / location
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Located at the intersection of two major axes: Meiji-dori—the city’s established avenue of commerce lined with financial offices—and Inabacho-dori—an organic pedestrian corridor linked to the City Hall Plaza and Galleria.
1 Chome-10-20 Tenjin, Chuo Ward, Fukuoka, 810-0001, Japan.
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Photography
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Tomoyuki Kusunose.
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Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), and the Seattle Central Library (2004).

AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a colored "barcode" flag, combining the flags of all member states, which was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU. AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced Countryside: The Future, a research exhibited at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including Public Works (2012), Cronocaos (2010), and The Gulf (2006); and for Fondazione Prada, including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its publication Elements. Other notable projects are Roadmap 2050, a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.

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Shohei Shigematsu born in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan in 1973. In 1996 graduated from the Department of Architecture at Kyushu University. Studying at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam. He became an associate since 2004.joined OMA in 1998 and became a partner in 2008.

He has led the office in New York since 2006. Sho's designs for cultural venues include the Quebec National Beaux Arts Museum and the Faena Arts Center in Miami Beach, as well as direct collaborations with artists, including Cai Guo Qiang, Marina Abramovic and Kanye West.

Sho is currently designing a number of luxury, high rise towers in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, as well as a mixed-use complex in Santa Monica. His engagement with urban conditions around the world include a new civic center in Bogota, Colombia; a post-Hurricane Sandy, urban water strategy for New Jersey; and a food hub in Louisville, Kentucky.

He is a design critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he is conducting a research studio entitled Alimentary Design, investigating the intersection of food, architecture and urbanism.
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Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is a leading international partnership practicing architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. OMA's buildings and masterplans around the world insist on intelligent forms while inventing new possibilities for content and everyday use. OMA is led by ten partners – Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, David Gianotten, Chris van Duijn, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Jason Long and Michael Kokora – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, Hong Kong, Doha and Dubai.

Responsible for OMA’s operations in America, OMA New York was established in 2001 and has since overseen the successful completion of several buildings across the country including Milstein Hall at Cornell University (2011); the Wyly Theater in Dallas (2009); the Seattle Central Library (2004); the IIT Campus Center in Chicago (2003); and Prada’s Epicenter in New York (2001). The office is currently overseeing the construction of three cultural projects, including the Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec and the Faena Arts District in Miami Beach – both scheduled for completion in 2016 – as well as a studio expansion for artist Cai Guo Qiang in New York. The New York office has most recently been commissioned to design a number of residential towers in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, as well as two projects in Los Angeles; the Plaza at Santa Monica, a mixed use complex in Los Angeles, and the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

OMA New York’s ongoing engagements with urban conditions around the world include a new civic center in Bogota, Colombia; a post-Hurricane Sandy, urban water strategy for New Jersey; the 11th Street Bridge Park and RFK Stadium-Armory Campus Masterplan in Washington, DC; and a food hub in West Louisville, Kentucky.

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