Village Foods Offices – Aichi
Design & Creative Associates have designed the new offices of Village Foods, located in Aichi, Japan.
“Village Foods Co.” is a corporation located in Tahara City, Aichi that operates multiple restaurants. If their restaurant business under direct management and franchises are combined, shops are located not only within the local area, but in many cities in Japan and even abroad. They are a corporation that is rapidly growing. In anticipation of business expansion, they planned to build their headquarter building with a central kitchen. We were to design the interior of the area with a focus on office function and the exterior of the entire building.
The first floor has an entrance hall and a central kitchen in the middle while the second floor has a space with a focus on office function, realizing a clear functional division between two floors. When stepping into the open-ceiling entrance hall, there appears a grand staircase in front leading us straight to the second floor . The aim was to give visitors a surprise and excitement for what is to come. The grand staircase and the surrounding walls were finished by meticulously gluing tile-like wood strips. The entrance hall and adjacent lobby space look solid and professional.
The office space for clerical duties and the meeting rooms connected from the second-floor hall are divided by figured glass, to ensure spacious atmosphere, while loosely partitioning the space. We arranged the cafeteria for employees across from the open-ceiling entrance hall. This was to create a comfortable space to refresh oneself with an open atmosphere, like a coffee shop where one can relax around a spacious dining table.
For the president’s room, we used solid material for the floor, wall, and the ceiling to provide it with a dual function as a reception space. The irregular shaped stone pitching gives a rough impression, but in combination with the ordinate flooring and linearly arranged wooden boards on the walls, the whole room takes a more patterned, organized look.
The exterior walls are covered with genuine antique brick tiles used in Vietnamese buildings when the country was ruled by France. We thought to make the best out of these tiles by lining them with various patterns, rather than monotonously juxtaposing them, because their shape and size are irregular. While maintaining a light impression, the exterior holds the strength and beauty that impresses guests with craftsmen’s time-consuming tiling work.
For the finish, we selected expressive genuine materials, such as solid wood boards, natural stones, and cement and mosaic tiles. By assembling and laminating fragments of these materials in open space, we tried to express joyful abundance.
With various materials layering on each other utilizing their attributes, the finished design turned out to be very profound.
Design: Design & Creative Associates
Lead Architects: Kawaguchi Atsushi
Photography: Hiroyuki Oki
