PARKS PATIO

NANKAI has remodeled the shared meeting room area in "Parks Tower," an office building adjacent to Namba Parks in Osaka, into an employee-only lounge called "PARKS PATIO."
It is planned as a space like a "special backyard for working people," which will resonate with the lush Parks Garden, a symbol of Namba Parks.

As a space used daily by employees, we have created an environment that accommodates diverse ways of spending time, not only for meetings and work, but also for breaks and refreshing oneself. Through worker-participatory production processes, art using garden plants, and sound design incorporating ambient sounds from along the railway line, we aim to enhance the overall value of the office building and improve the worker experience by incorporating spaces for mental and physical rejuvenation within the convenience of the city.
Our company was responsible for everything from planning design, layout to production and construction.

The existing meeting room area had limited uses and was not adequately able to accommodate diverse work styles.
Furthermore, as the office building had been in operation for many years, updating its functions and environment to meet the changing needs and lifestyles of workers in the common areas had become a challenge.

Therefore, there was a desire to enhance the appeal and comfort of the office building by developing shared spaces that workers could easily use in their daily lives, while taking advantage of the location adjacent to the lush natural environment of Namba Parks.

The challenge was not simply to update the meeting room functions, but to reconstruct the space as a "place for working people" that could accommodate multiple usage scenarios such as work, breaks, and networking.

In the spatial concept design, we incorporated organic curves and elements of light and greenery on an architectural scale that resonates with the landscape of Namba Parks, while also planning art and sound as part of the spatial experience. We also planned a shared space where users can choose how to spend their time according to their mood and purpose at the time. This project is being carried out as a collaborative effort to create the space together with users, involving stakeholders such as office tenants' workers and clients in the production process.

The iconic botanical art uses plants grown during the pruning of the Parks Garden as its material. Through this direct connection with the garden, the space expresses the respect for "greenery" that Namba Parks has brought to the city.
Furthermore, the artwork placed at the far end of the relaxation room utilizes scrap metal provided by commercial tenants at Parks. By reinterpreting this material into plant motifs, it symbolizes the unique environment of Parks where the city and nature coexist.

For the ambient sound design, we conducted sound material recording workshops with tenant workers. Based on ambient sounds collected in the Namba area and along the Nankai railway line, we constructed a system that plays randomly reconstructed ambient sounds throughout the space. This creates a sound environment where you can feel the presence of nature even while in the city.