Yamato Headquarters Building A, Building B designed by NIKKEN SEKKEI LTD, KAJIMA DESIGN, KOIZUMI LIGHTING TECHNOLOGY CORP, Matt & Massimo (Japan)

The daily commute has become a choice that every headquarters must justify. Employees already know that concentration, administration and online meetings can take place at home. What brings people back is the experience of working together: the exchange of knowledge, the energy of a shared purpose, and the freedom to switch between collaboration and solitude. Yamato's new headquarters addresses an important question at a pivotal moment in the company's history. Completed in time for its centenary, Buildings A and B embody a culture centred on circulation, connection, and the everyday movement of life across Japan. Designed by NIKKEN SEKKEI and KAJIMA DESIGN, the campus has been created as a workplace where employees can directly experience those values. A road separates the site, creating two distinct plots for the buildings. However, their shared timber architecture establishes a collective identity, bridging the physical distance. The deep eaves, repetitive structural lines, and warm surfaces contribute to a cohesive presence within the city. Employees moving between the buildings remain part of the same work environment, transforming their journey across the site into a continual expression of connection. Timber gives the headquarters a character that feels more welcoming and human than like a corporate spectacle. Its grain shifts with the changing daylight, while its structural depth creates interesting shadows on the façades. The illuminated eaves contribute to a serene presence in the evening. For a national logistics company, this material conveys a sense of responsibility and permanence, all within an architecture that remains approachable and relatable to daily work. Employees are encouraged to choose how they spend each part of their day. The tiered floors create a diverse landscape featuring open areas, lower seating, benches, counters, and gathering spaces for teams. The design of the space enhances the social value of the journey to headquarters. By keeping teams visible across various levels, informal conversations can easily occur in circulation areas, while larger spaces provide familiar settings for collective activities. This architectural layout makes the organization more perceptible, helping employees see how their work fits within a broader network of colleagues. Natural light enhances the connection to time and place within the workspace. The building's stepped design allows daylight to reach deeper areas, creating a dynamic environment that evolves throughout the day as the sun moves. Employees can remain aware of the outside world without focusing solely on their screens and desks, while the building effectively reduces the need for artificial lighting during daylight hours. Yamato’s field-control system adds a personal touch to this collective environment. Using NFC technology, it identifies where an employee has chosen to work, allowing nearby lighting and airflow to adjust via a user interface. This system recognizes that individuals experience temperature, brightness, and focus differently, allowing comfort to follow them across a flexible office layout. Additionally, the lighting shifts from morning to evening in harmony with the circadian rhythm, providing a sense of progression throughout the workday. This transition moves from the clarity of morning to a softer ambiance later in the day. The integration of environmental technology supports personal well-being, granting employees a visible degree of control within a large shared workplace. The value of the project lies in the relationship between these two forms of choice. Architecture offers different social and spatial conditions across the floor. Technology adjusts the immediate environment around the body. Employees can choose where to work and shape how that place feels, striking a balance between individual preferences and collective life. This approach reflects a broader cultural shift in the perception of the office. Attendance is no longer solely defined by being present at an assigned desk. The workplace should provide experiences that support individuals throughout their day; whether it’s meeting a colleague, collaborating with a team, finding a quiet spot, adjusting the lighting, or feeling connected to an organization with a unified direction. The concept holds particular significance for Yamato, as its operations depend on a vast network of relationships among people, businesses, and cities. The headquarters embodies this network through two connected buildings, diverse workspaces, and environmental systems tailored to meet each employee's needs. As the company celebrates its centenary, the focus shifts to cultivating a culture for the future of work. Designed by NIKKEN SEKKEI and KAJIMA DESIGN, the headquarters encourages collaboration among employees while honouring the autonomy that flexible working arrangements provide. This new chapter begins with a workplace that emphasizes movement, comfort, and the intrinsic value of camaraderie.

The project’s strength lies in the interplay between its macro-architectural unity and micro-environmental autonomy. Timber construction anchors two disparate plots into a singular, cohesive civic identity, using deep eaves and rhythmic structural lines to moderate the scale. Internally, the architecture rejects the monotony of the standard office floor by pairing stepped, varied perimeter landscapes with an NFC-enabled field control system, treating comfort as a dynamic, personal resource rather than a static, uniform standard. This alignment of individual agency and energy efficiency offers a compelling blueprint for the post-pandemic headquarters; one that justifies the commute by providing a tangible, responsive workday experience.

As Yamato celebrates its centenary, this headquarters sets itself apart by embracing a dynamic approach to corporate history rather than falling into the trap of conventional institutional designs. The design team has created a vibrant workplace that thrives on human interaction and collaboration, and they are currently undergoing a significant transformation in the office concept, where commuting becomes a thoughtful choice rather than an obligation. Yamato meets this evolving challenge by promoting presence through meaningful spatial opportunities, allowing employees to shape their own environments. This approach harmoniously balances collective corporate aspirations with individual autonomy. The headquarters emerges not just as a location for work, but as an adaptive landscape that highlights the idea that the most successful future office is one that engages its inhabitants as active contributors to the company’s ongoing journey.

Image 01 — Headquarters exterior The principal exterior view shows two precise timber buildings with deep horizontal eaves. Repeated structural members give the headquarters a shared civic identity while moderating the scale of the office volumes.

Image 02 — Upward view of illuminated eaves The low-angle photograph emphasizes the depth of the timber roof edge and its integrated light. Structure, weather protection, and nighttime identity are resolved in a single architectural element.

Image 03 — Side elevation and urban relationship The side view reveals the layered façade and the buildings’ relationship with the surrounding streets. Timber rhythm and recessed glazing create depth rather than a flat, corporate curtain wall.

Image 04 — High-ceiling workplace A tall internal volume supports gathering and visual connection across levels. Timber structure and broad daylight give the communal setting a generous but controlled atmosphere.

Image 05 — Stepped-floor workplace Changes in floor height, built-in furniture, and ceiling level create several working conditions within a single open field. Employees can move between focus, conversation and informal meeting without entering enclosed rooms.

Image 06 — Circadian lighting sequence The presentation compares morning, daytime and evening colour temperatures—artificial light changes with the working day, supporting visual comfort and the body’s natural rhythm.

Image 07 — Field-control interface The user-control image explains how NFC location detection links an employee to nearby lighting and airflow. Personal environmental adjustment becomes part of ordinary free-address work.

The project occupies a site divided by a road, with Headquarters Buildings A and B positioned as separate volumes. A consistent timber façade, roof language and interior planning strategy allow the two buildings to function as one corporate campus. The perimeter of each office floor rises and falls in sections. These stepped areas create varied ceiling heights, outlooks and degrees of enclosure, producing a sequence of work settings around the edge of the building. Purpose-designed furniture follows the changes in level. Counters, benches and tables convert landings and tiered zones into usable workplaces rather than leaving the section as a visual gesture alone. The central floor areas contain the principal field-control infrastructure and flexible free-address settings. This arrangement places personalized environmental technology where occupation changes most frequently, while the perimeter gains spatial variety and daylight. High-ceiling communal areas act as shared anchors within the office. Lower and more contained zones provide alternatives for concentration, allowing the plan to support different tasks without extensive fixed partitioning. Daylight enters through the perimeter glazing and reaches across the stepped floor. Artificial lighting supplements occupied zones and adjusts colour temperature throughout the day, reducing unnecessary daytime use while maintaining comfort.

The new headquarters, celebrating its 100th anniversary, redefines the concept of a workplace where people come together to work after the COVID-19 pandemic. As a company responsible for distribution, we aim to embody our commitment to the environment and society, fostering unity on a site divided by a road, with a wooden office featuring tiered floors that connect people and the city through diverse spaces. The outer perimeter of the office features stepped-floor spaces with varying floor and ceiling levels, creating a variety of workplace layouts by combining changes in spatial scale with unique furniture designs.

The central area of the floor integrates field control technology, enabling personalized environmental adjustments that achieve a balance between high flexibility, comfort, and energy efficiency. The eaves of the exterior are illuminated to emphasize a distinctly Japanese wooden aesthetic. The stepped-floor spaces are designed to actively bring in natural light, minimizing the need for artificial lighting during the day and achieving significant energy savings. The lighting plan also prioritizes comfort, adjusting the color temperature throughout the day-morning, daytime, and evening-to align with the human circadian rhythm.

"Field Control" Lighting intensity, color temperature, and air conditioning airflow can be controlled directly by user interface. By utilizing NFC tags, the system detects a user’s location and adjusts nearby lighting and air conditioning, making it compatible with free-address office setups. This approach embraces the "task and ambient" concept to customize the working environment, enhancing workplace freedom while simultaneously promoting energy efficiency.

Prepared for Merci Magazine × Sky Design Awards 2026