van der Architects shared with us another completed project called “GroupM”.
Description of the project from the architect:
This is the design for the reception of GroupM, a group company within the WPP group. Rather than designing a space using the various corporate colours of the GroupM companies we decided to design three meeting rooms as three free standing grey boxes. These boxes are finished in glass bead stucco, a wonderful three dimensional material with an equally brilliant name: Jolypatte.
All the tables are custom designed. We used Marmoleum for the table top as this allowed us to create a seamless surface. We will spare the jury the details, the amount of time and effort that went into convincing both the client and the contractors that this very simple and cheap method of creating a seamless table top actually could be implemented.
The telephone booth is a tongue in cheek reference to the British roots of the company. Most of the other furniture has been re-used, but we convinced the client to buy new Kartell Frilly chairs.
Due to the position of the building none of the meeting rooms have an exterior view. To avoid claustrophobia we placed, inside these boxes, at eye level, black and white panoramas of Japanese scenes. One room has seascapes of the Ryukyu islands, another a scenic view from inside a Kyoto temple and the largest room shows a slice of Tokyo’s night life. We did this to help the client not to chose idiotic names for their meeting rooms and just simply stick to the suggested North, South and West. All the boxes have yellow coloured windows suggesting a coloured world-view that GroupM as a marketing company
offers to their clients.
PROJECT INFORMATION
Project Title: GroupM
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Client: GroupM
Principal Use: Meeting Rooms
Architect/Firm: Martin van der Linden, Ayumu Ota – van der Architects
Design Period: 2009-2010
Construction Period: 2010-2011
Date of Completion: 2011
Site Area (square meters): 160m2
Construction Company: Tanseisha
M&E Engineer: Kajima
Main Materials/Finishings/Fittings/Furnishing: Stucco, Tile, Glass, Aluminium
