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Renowned Foster + Partners studio reveals design of mass timber department store in Tokyo
Global studio for architecture, engineering, urban and landscape design, Foster + Partners, has unveiled their latest commercial project (mass timber) on the world-famous Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, Japan.
Called the Shibuya Marui Department Store, the nine-storey retail development is set to become a new space for sustainable lifestyle brands, adopting the highest standards of sustainability and core principles of environmental responsibility and wellbeing.
Inspired by traditional Japanese timber building techniques and will be built primarily from glued laminated timber (GLT) and cross-laminated timber (CLT), though Foster + Partners doesn’t actually specify which at this early stage. However, due to Japan’s regular earthquakes, it will also include elements of heavy-gauge steel.
ABOVE: The Shibuya Marui Department Store’s interior design will feature exposed GLT beams.
Marui aims to create a close-knit community of brands and people who share the same sustainable values. The design of the new store aligns with this vision by maximizing daylight and passive thermal comfort, while using natural materials. Inspired by traditional Japanese building techniques, the store features a mass timber structure that lowers the building’s embodied carbon, and creates a distinctive presence on one of the city’s arterial routes.
The western facade of the building, which looks onto Koen Dori Road, combines an expressed mass timber structure with a timber balustrade cladding. The roof garden also includes a café and restaurant, and has the potential to include an urban food farm in the future.
ABOVE: The roof garden overlooking the Koen Dori and Shibuya Crossing.
At ground level, the north and south entrances lead to the vertical circulation zone in the east via landscaped bamboo walkways and green walls, which then lead to the department store. In the interior, the building features open plan retail units with timber floors and exposed timber ceilings, in addition to a steel structure which enhances the building’s seismic performance. The building will be powered by renewable energy, part of which will be generated from on-site photovoltaic panels.
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