When asked to design an office for the Tokyo branch of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty , Klein Dytham Architecture approached the project as though it were a piece of furniture. Stealing the show is a meeting room that looks like an oversized seating element. Creating interiors in Japan is a perilous undertaking.
Tenants have extremely little freedom to create a place that they can call their own.
This is the field of tension that Klein Dytham Architecture entered on being commissioned to design an office for the Tokyo branch of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, a British firm whose good reputation rests solidly on its trailblazing work for Levi's. It was to be a singular and daring space but, at the same time, simple and orderly in reference to the Japanese context. And every requirement was to be contained in a small area that has to be in its original state on a day in the future when BHH makes its exit. In their efforts to leave walls and ceiling fully intact, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham approached the design of the interior with the same strategy that is used in furniture design. They built all components off site, had them delivered to the premises and assembled them on site.