This is a small communication plaza for the industry campus “Nabeya Bi-tech Kaisha” in Seki, Gifu, Japan. About 400 people work in this factory for the design, manufacturing and sale of machine elements and components for motion control technology. This plaza is constructed as connection points from the workplace to the parking area with the staircases. Before the construction, on the campus, there were few spaces to communicate with workers outside buildings. Under the garden factory concept by the former chairman, this plaza is designed as a communication space surrounding with forest. The building next to the plaza has a rest space and a fitness club so that the plaza can play the role of a communication place for workers.
The composition of the plaza is so simple with a curved white concrete bench, wooden decks as a terrace and a table with white punching metal. The shape of the bench is curved to receive and hold people to talk and communicate there. The foot space of the bench is coloured with vivid orange as an endpoint of the main axis of the campus to invite people to come. The width of the bench in the backside from the main path is wider than in the foreside to much relaxative. The table is placed above the bench lightly as a fabric scarf with curved punching metal and dark-coloured structures.
In the evening time, the plaza was dark because of the lack of lighting and surrounding forest. Mainly lighting is equipped only for roads with only cold coloured light on the campus. We try to set home space in the factory to communicate between workers with warm lighting. Warm orange-coloured lighting with the three dimension-curving bench invites you the space as special lighting color in the factory. Layer lighting with table lighting and the lighting with a pole generates depth of the space and impressive space with night activities.
Other landscape architecture offices involved in the design of landscape: Oshima Landscape Construction Co., Ltd.
Project location: 1, Toko-Taichi, Seki City, Gifu 501-3939, Japan
Design year: 2019-2020
Year Built: 2020
