Shin-Fukuoka comprises retail, office, and hotel amenities at the prominent crossing of Meiji and Watanabe Avenues, a highly valued real estate location within this region.
KPF’s design incorporates three main concepts: the urban roof, urban grid, and urban oasis. Housing a complex program of varied uses, the structure required a dominant design element that would unify its parts. An L-shaped roof envelops the building, starting at its western edge and continuing down its eastern façade. As this “urban roof” articulates a response to its context, the “urban grid” concept lays the foundation for the design of Shin-Fukuoka’s individual programs. Hotel, office, and co-working tenants share a central lobby space, reflecting the region’s cultural ethos of openness. With this convergence, each program’s massing interlocks at the building’s surface, encased in a steel grid frame.
The building’s interlocking forms produce voids and projections that house multiple outdoor terraces, capitalizing on the area’s sub-tropical climate and its conduciveness to healthy growth of vegetation. Green space flows throughout the interior, starting with a vertical garden at the main intersection of Tenjin Crossing, with progressive green spaces at the retail, co-working, and hotel floors. Shin-Fukuoka is also part of the city’s Tenjin Meiji Avenue Grand Design redevelopment project. Initiated in 2009, the development council initiative strives to grow Fukuoka as a business and tourist hub.
