Tokyo, Japan

Takenaka Corporation designed the Shibuya Parco after carefully considering user circulation within a vertical space They created a vertical “town” that is full of activity, reflecting the hustle-bustle and liveliness of Shibuya, driving the flow of people and liveliness into the building

Hence, this project was short-listed for a 2021 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

In building a commercial structure in such a high-density town, the architects challenged themselves to incorporate the surrounding locale into the building. Shibuya is made up of unique streets with distinctive features, which served as inspiration for the building’s design of a vertical “street”.

The spaces along the vertical street from the ground to the rooftop square are dotted with unique shops, event spaces, a theater, and other entertainment facilities, and public squares. Various elements to create liveliness are sprinkled throughout the development, just as it would along the actual town’s streets.

The building configuration consists of a group of relatively small-scale buildings, which create a high-density hustle-bustle that characterizes the town of Shibuya, in the form of vertically accumulated independent white volumes. The vertical street, created as a new “street,” threads through between those accumulated volumes and serves as the main street to let the building become a vertical “town.”

Project: Shibuya Parco
Architects: Takenaka Corporation
Associate Architects: BENOY
Client: Hitoshi Komatsu, Parco Co., Ltd.
Contractor: Takenaka Corporation
Photographers: Shimao Nozomu, SS Co.,Ltd.