Shigeru Ban: Swatch headquarters, Tokyo, Japan.On the glamorous glam·or·ous also glam·our·ous adj. Full of or characterized by glamour. glam  or·ous·ly adv. shopping streets of Ginza Gin·za A major shopping and entertainment district of Tokyo, Japan. , central Tokyo, all of the top brands can be seen. Chanel, Dior, Cartier, Sony: they all line up, sparkling with inviting charm. Wallets burn holes in pockets, and credit cards groan under the strain as a casual stroll easily leads to unnecessary and costly impulse purchases An impulse purchase is an unplanned or otherwise spontaneous purchase. One who tends to make such purchases is referred to as an impulse buyer. Marketers and retailers tend to exploit these impulses which are tied to the basic need for instant gratification. . [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Now Swatch is joining the ranks, with this 14-storey building designed by the Toyko-based architect of paper and plastic, Shigeru Ban Shigeru Ban (坂茂, Ban Shigeru; born 1957 in Tokyo, Japan) is an accomplished Japanese and international architect, most famous for his innovative work with paper . The Nicolas G. Heyek Center, however, is not only a shop. It also provides accommodation for the new Swatch Group Japan headquarters, containing seven shops, customer services and administration space, and recreation facilities. Sited between two streets, Ginza Shigaraki and Ginza Chuo, the double-height ground floor showroom invites customers in from both sides. With two set-back upper levels, and a lower level basement This article is about the section of a building. For the foundation, see Basement rock. A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Slab-on-grade buildings do not have basements. , the principal retail space reads as a quadruple-height volume. When read from the street, this generous proportion sets the scale of three subsequent triple-height shop fronts that rise above. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Within the ground floor retail area, seven showroom lifts--one for each of the watchmaker's brands--exploit the available height to provide access to each of the shop floors, creating a lively and dynamic environment for anyone who steps in from the street. In section, the set-back profile extends over all levels to create three so-called parks. These triple-height planted window boxes transform the principal facade facade (fəsäd`), exterior face or wall of a building. The term implies ordered placement of its openings and other features and thus seems inapplicable to a wall without design. into a glass greenhouse wall. At the uppermost level, the roof of the building provides space for a bar and spa, which sits beneath a curvaceous cur·va·ceous adj. Having the curves of a full or voluptuous figure. cur·va ceous·ly adv. free-form roof structure. R. G.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion