Cookpad Ikejiri Office

This project was developed as part of Cookpad’s relocation from its former office in Yokohama, transforming the basement, ground, and second floors of an existing office building in Ikejiri-Ohashi into a new workplace. Rather than approaching the move as a simple upgrade of working conditions, the client placed emphasis on creating an office centred around the kitchen—one in which everyday work could naturally give rise to shared moments and unplanned interactions.

Against this background, the project set out not to prioritise efficiency or the rational organisation of functions, but to consider how architecture might support situations in which people and activities overlap within the flow of daily work, allowing unexpected conversations and events to emerge.

The existing building already possessed contrasting spatial characteristics: a ground floor that opens directly onto the street, and basement and upper floors whose interiors are less visible from outside. Instead of treating these differences as a straightforward functional division, the project reinterprets them as conditions that allow shifts in behaviour and relationships. By allowing spaces close to the city and more inward-looking, calm environments to coexist, multiple degrees of distance are introduced across the office as a whole.

Placed across these differing conditions is the kitchen. Here, it is not conceived as a welfare facility or a break space, but as a reason for people to stop, linger, and find themselves sharing the same place. Cooking itself is not the primary objective. What matters is that people gather, paths cross, and conversations begin without clear intent. The kitchen accommodates moments that are not fully defined by purpose, allowing informal interactions to become part of everyday work.

Uses are deliberately not over-prescribed. The mix of people changes throughout the day, and encounters occur between individuals who might otherwise have had little contact. These small coincidences, repeated over time, gradually reshape relationships within the organisation and contribute to the ongoing evolution of its culture.

What this project seeks is not an office whose mode of use is fixed at the moment of completion. Instead, it aims to sustain an environment that continues to leave room for “something to happen” as it is inhabited and used over time.