Shigeru Ban Builds Thirteen Storey High Green Wall
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.25.08
Jetson Green points us to Shigeru Ban's new Swatch headquarters in the Ginza, envisioned as "a hanging garden reminiscent of the ones found in ancient Babylon." it is really a series of separate stores stacked on top of each other; Jean Snow writes in Time Magazine:
"The building focuses on Swatch's luxury labels — Breguet, Blancpain, Glashütte Original, Jaquet Droz, Léon Hatot, Omega (plus a Swatch presence for the masses) — each with its own retail space. Each shop has a hydraulic glass elevator that lifts you directly to the shop's entrance and doubles as a showroom, offering a glimpse of what to expect when it stops and you step out."
From the Swiss Watch Federation:
On the first floor, there are 7 glass transparent showrooms, which are, at the same time, elevators go directly to each boutiques above.
Seven boutiques are Omega on the 2nd floor, Breguet/ Leon Hatot on the 3rd floor, Blancpain/Glashutte Original/Jaquet Droz on the 4th floor, and Swatch on B1.
The 5th, 6th and 7th floor are customer center, such as of Omega(5F),of prestige brands(6F), of high&middle brands(7F) respectively.
From 8th floor to 13th floor are used as offices. Top floor is named as the "Cite du Temps Ginza" to be used as an event hall.
Whole building is designed as a "space of greenery", where "plants" covering entire wall up to the 14th floor, "wind" and "running water" are designed.
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You guys need someone with an engineer background as an editor or something.
Hydraulic elevators are obscenely inefficient.
So if it has lots of glass, it's green? The hydraulic elevator doesn't detract from that? Hmm.. I think I see a problem