Toranomon Hills Station Tower by OMA/Shohei Shigematsu
Location: Tokyo
Status: Completed, 2023

Toranomon Hills Station Tower, designed by OMA/Shohei Shigematsu, has been completed. Developed by Mori Building, the 49-story mixed-use tower is the firm’s first ground-up building in Tokyo and the largest built work to date. The building is the final installment of Mori Building’s vision for the Toranomon Hills Area and central Tokyo as a new Global Business Center hub.

The Toranomon Hills Station Tower takes an open approach to the connection between the building and the city, creating a tightly woven interface in the immediate urban context. The building has a highly public base including a new Tokyo Metro Station tower underground, a light-filled station atrium and retail concourse, and a cultural center at the top called TOKYO NODE. A new hotel and leasable office floors are located in between. The tower stands at the terminus of Shintora-dori Avenue, a newly configured thoroughfare connecting Tokyo Bay to the city center. Its form is created by extending the axis of Shintora – dori Avenue – its public character defines a central activity band in which special areas for gathering are concentrated. The core is lifted and split to either side of the base, drawing the public inward. The avenue extends into and through the tower via an elevated pedestrian bridge, completing a loop of greenery and activities for the Toranomon Hills Area.

The bridge divides the base into two retail zones. The lower zone, the Station Atrium, provides direct access to the new Toranomon Hills Station on the Hibiya Line of the Tokyo Metro. The multi-story underground station is open to the outside and flooded with natural light, providing fluid access to the interior of the tower. The public activity at the base extends vertically to form a central band of special areas for tenants throughout the tower. The building is shaped to reveal this band from multiple vantage points, making it visible across Tokyo. Two slabs sandwiching the central band are formed in inverted symmetry. The north slab narrows as it reaches the top in deference to the Imperial Palace. The south slab is narrowest at its base and widens as it rises, maximizing views of Tokyo Tower and the Roppongi Hills skyline.

The tower is open to the public and defines a new center of commercial and cultural activity. Works of art and exhibition space are integral to the tower’s presence in the urban context. A series of public art commissions, including site-specific works by Leo Villareal, Larry Bell, Oba Daisuke, and N. S. Harsha will be on view throughout the complex. The top floor of the tower is dedicated to TOKYO NODE, a multifaceted center for cultural activities devised by OMA and Mori Building in collaboration. Its state-of-the-art Lab, three galleries, and sky garden with a pool and restaurants open with a specially commissioned installation by Rhizomatiks x ELEVENPLAY.

Shohei Shigematsu, Partner, OMA: “I am very happy that the Toranomon Hills Station Tower, our first groundup building in Tokyo and first high-rise in Japan, is now taking its place in the city. The tower makes connections with the Tokyo Metro network, the surrounding neighbourhood along a renewed Shintora-dori, and other nearby skyscrapers spatially and programmatically. It blends together living, working, and cultural activity within and around its highly public base and top. The resulting multilayered, three-dimensional experience of space, a signature of life in Tokyo, is seamlessly knitted into the city fabric. It was fun and rewarding to create a vision for a project of this scale and complexity with Mori Building and work in Japan with a great team of collaborators, whose expertise and dedication to craft and execution were essential to the project. I look forward to seeing the new building enhance existing urban relationships and start to create new ones.”

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