Rough Brick and GRC Create a Layered Street Facade
Kawamura Electric’s new headquarters in central Nagoya brings together workplace, culture, nature, and social interaction within a seven-story building. Designed by KIAS as a new base for the company, whose origins are in Seto, Aichi Prefecture, the project accommodates offices alongside an art gallery and a multipurpose hall for approximately 110 people. The building is organized as a hybrid workplace intended to connect employees, clients, and the wider community.
The exterior is composed of two contrasting material systems. The lower volume facing the street is clad in rough, heavily textured bricks manufactured in Hekinan, while the upper volume is wrapped in a fine grid of GRC (glass-fiber reinforced concrete). The two volumes are subtly displaced in section, creating a shifting shadow line and allowing them to read as distinct masses. Within a neighborhood of temples, apartment buildings, and small parks, the change in scale reduces the perceived mass of the seven-story building and relates it more closely to its surroundings.
The GRC lattice serves both environmental and architectural functions. It moderates solar gain while incorporating the window system within its depth, giving the facade a layered and permeable appearance. Its sectional proportions were developed through a series of full-scale mock-ups and prototypes using actual GRC members, steel structure, and window frames. The studies examined dimensions and junctions as well as the sequence of construction. The brick facade is similarly defined by small variations in dimension. The bricks were produced in three different lengths, with mortar joints recessed by 2 mm and approximately one in every four bricks randomly projecting by 4 mm. These small shifts create changing shadows across the surface, emphasizing the outline, mass, and texture of individual units. The arrangement makes the assembly of the brickwork visible as part of the building’s architectural expression.
the neighborhood is characterized by temples, apartment buildings, and small parks | all images ©Daici Ano
Planted Atrium Forms the Headquarters’ Social Heart
Beyond the five-meter-high entrance door, a seven-story atrium forms the central social and environmental space of the headquarters. The void supports natural ventilation while creating visual and acoustic connections between the offices, executive floors, and cafeteria. Movement and activity can therefore be perceived across different areas of the workplace. A twelve-meter-long vertical garden, together with planting distributed throughout the atrium, was designed by French artist and botanist Patrick Blanc. More than 180 plant species introduce a dense layer of vegetation into the interior, shaping the atmosphere of the central space as a luminous forest ravine.
Artworks by Yojiro Imasaka, Takuro Kuwata, and Hirosuke Yabe are incorporated throughout the building alongside terrazzo stairs, handmade tiles, and brick counters. These elements extend the material palette from the exterior into the interior, combining art, planting, light, and tactile surfaces within the workplace. By combining offices with cultural and communal programs, the headquarters expands the workplace beyond a purely functional setting. Its architecture places particular emphasis on connections between departments and people, while bringing nature, art, and material details into everyday working spaces.
rough textured bricks form the lower volume, while the upper volume is wrapped in a lattice of GRC
heavily textured bricks custom-made in Hekinan, Aichi Prefecture, compose the south facade
a twelve-meter-long vertical garden and planting adorn the atrium, designed by botanist Patrick Blanc