Tokyo Station/ Tokyo, Japan/ 2002‑2013
Type: Commercial, Hospitality, Mixed-Use, Office, Transportation
Size: 3,737,080 sq ft / 347,000 sq m
Height: 42 floors; 656 ft / 200 m
Status: Completed 2013
Recognition: AIJ Architectural Design Award; AIA Chicago Divine Detail Award
Through an invited competition, Jahn was selected to lead an ambitious development in the Chiyoda ward of central Tokyo, transforming the area surrounding Tokyo’s main inter-city rail terminal and the busiest station in Japan. The project includes two new mixed-use office towers, which rise from the dense urban site, and an arcing textile “light sail” canopy that forms a linear connection along the length of the development. This composition frames a gateway to Tokyo, with the canopy marking the east entrance to Tokyo Central Station.
The dynamic form and technical construction of the Tokyo Station Yaesu Redevelopment establishes an elegant contrast to the historic station to the west and adds to the diverse architectural landscape of Tokyo. The towers become luminous beacons to this important node within the city.
The 234-meter-long canopy is conceived as a large flat textile panel fixed in a straight line at the track edge and supported on steel frames of varying heights and angles spaced at 18-meter intervals. The variation in height and angle gives the canopy its simple yet distinctive profile. The textile panel is suspended from the steel framework allowing the surface of the canopy to be a continuous luminous plane. The structure can be seen through the textile surface and is read like the veins of a leaf, while structures under the canopy provide an upper-level connection to the two office towers, station, and retail.
The double-shell “airflow-façade” of the towers presents an innovative response to the climatic parameters. The building skin is composed of two layers of uncoated glass separated by a 15-centimeter air space. This air space is filled with shades and provides an interstitial zone through which exhaust air is pulled from the interior.
