NICCA INNOVATION CENTER | Fukui-city, Fukui, Japan | 2017

Architects: Tetsuo Kobori Architects 
Client: NICCA Chemical Co., Ltd.
General Contractor: Shimizu Corporation
Photographers: Takahiro Arai

NICCA Chemical Group, which has been based in this part of Fukui Prefecture since 1941, is a chemical manufacturer specializing primarily in surfactants for textile processing as well as other products such as cosmetics and biological products.

This is a plan to rebuild its the firm’s research facility. The proposed site is an urban environment lined with residential houses. Despite the character of such an environment, we were asked to create a facility that would be a source of innovation bringing people “from the world to Fukui.”

The architects glassed in all of the laboratories that had previously been closed off and situated a “commons” in the center as a hot-desking office environment. The glass laboratories are linked seamlessly with the commons to produce rapid interactions while engendering the formation of an integrated research community.

The commons is a space where people, the natural environment, activities, and tools are constantly in flux.

While the commons on the second and third floor are intended for employees, it is also important to have a “Public Common” on the first floor composed of a showcase, café, cafeteria, practical laboratory, hair salon, and hall.

The concept is that of an urban “bazaar” – an open space effervescing with a lively atmosphere spilling out into the streets.

In addition, the “street” running from the first to the fourth floor allows a bird’s eye view that enables a museum-like multi-layered experience of all of the building’s spaces.

This street is intentionally made to be longer than necessary to elicit more encounters and emotions between researchers and others.

In the commons where the researchers congregate, we used the concept of a “harvest” that incorporates the blessings of nature with the warmth of the sun, the comfort of radiant air conditioning that makes use of groundwater, and the constant passage of the prevailing wind.

Slits in the concrete ceiling function as passageways for light, radiant heat, and the wind, creating a large environmental medium combining beauty with technology.

The louvers on the façade hide the pipes while mitigating the sun’s rays from the east, filtering the surroundings.

This delicate façade evokes a woven fabric to symbolize the textile industry with which NICCA Chemical has been closely associated, and which is also a major industry in Fukui.

This fabric, enveloping the space in a tender embrace, constitutes an interface that expresses the identities of Fukui and NICCA Chemical and forges a link with the community and its lush green landscape.

For the central common (office), the architects sought to create a comfortable space where researchers would naturally congregate – somewhere they would be able to get an embodied sense of the changing natural climate in a manner that would stimulate their activities.