PASONA GROUP
― Kono Design
↑ Pasona Group ― Courtesy of Kono Design
Pasona Group, a Japanese human resource company, established a series of food growing spaces in their headquarters Pasona O2 in 2003. It served as a proof of concept for urban food production and a means of reintroducing agriculture to the Japanese workforce, steadily shrinking over the last century from 70% in 1880 (Arimoto and Sakane) to just 3.17% today (O’Neill). The conversion was conceptualised and initiated by the company CEO, Mr Yasuyuki Nambu, who identified the disconnection between civic society and food production as a societal concern. Utilising an artificially lit basement to cultivate crops in urban environments paved the way for a shift in company and client culture that directed a new working generation toward farming and food production.
In 2010, Pasona Group’s Tokyo headquarters became Japan’s largest office food-growing scheme, a transformation project by the architecture company Kono Design of a 50-year-old multi-story financial office building. Their headquarter office, now demolished under another owner, was built under the fundamental concepts of “Agriculture, Health, and Eco-friendly”, delivered under a vision to reverse the declining number of farmers and ensure sustainable food production in Japan. Production methods include hydroponic and soil-based farming in multiple locations across the building’s interior and exterior façade.
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
The Pasona Tokyo Headquarters was designed as a food production and indoor green space, providing health benefits and a better workspace for their employees. Their livinglab approach investigates crop cultivation and encourages sensitivity to needs of the both human, and non-human occupants. Multiple interstitial spaces between meeting areas, beneath seating benches and in circulation spaces have been converted into foodgrowing opportunities, each focusing on optimizing for a different plant species.
An integrated climate control system facilitates the pursuit of optimal conditions for human occupants and crop cultivation. This system actively gauges factors like humidity, temperature, and airflow, adapting them to ensure a comfortable environment for occupants during office hours and a conducive setting for crop growth thereafter. This precise control over environmental conditions maximizes crop yield, leading to abundant annual harvests.
The transformation of the building into the Pasona Tokyo Headquarters from a financial services and trading headquarters involved the mindful preservation and repurposing of its envelope and superstructure. Repositioning ducts, pipes, and vertical shafts along the building’s perimeter facilitated re-routing water, wastewater and nutrition delivery conduit while lifting the ceiling height. This holistic and integrated approach leads to enhanced crop yields and successful annual harvests, demonstrating the effectiveness of multi-species-centric adaptive transformation.
SYSTEM DESIGN
Pasona Group’s urban farming techniques address the challenges of density in Tokyo city by finding opportunities to grow food overhead and on underutilized surfaces in the interior. In the reception, seasonal vine crops are grown in soil but hung from the ceiling for support. The conference rooms have tomatoes grown hydroponically in ceiling cavities, and vines are suspended above workspaces. The second floor is a canteen with meeting spaces for employees. Sprouts, microgreens and seedlings are germinated within its seating benches. Lemon trees and passionfruit trees are housed within partitions. The seminar rooms include displays of salad greens growing hydroponically. Fruits, berries and vegetables are also grown in suspended fabric pockets surrounding meeting desks. Their main lobby features a rice paddy and a field which greets visitors as a symbol of Japan’s food staple, grown in three phases according to the seasons.
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