Semba Good Ethical Office designed by Semba Corporation

Semba Corporation completely renovated the head office into a Good Ethical Office that is friendly to the earth, people and society. We designed it to create new value by utilizing existing resources through a resource-recycling renovation process.

Especially, we focused on a design based on “demolition”. As the waste generated during demolition are mixtures of various materials, it has been difficult to recycle and dumped in landfills. However, recycling is possible by carefully separating mixed waste into materials one by one. In our office renovation, we achieved a waste recycling rate of 99%. In addition to the reuse and recycling of resources, we upcycled existing office furniture and fixtures, material samples, generated in large quantities during the planning and design stages, and waste materials from construction sites, into furniture and artworks. Designers of our company constructed them by themselves, so that we were able to consider “demolition” from the design stage.

Besides, we reuse 80% of existing furniture by circulating the resources used in the space, such as stacking unneeded desks and wagons to create space for refreshments and in-house events. The project was not limited to “how much environmentally friendly materials we can use”. Each employee thought about “how to continue to use the space while changing its forms to meet our needs” from their own perspective.

Furthermore, with we+ inc., a contemporary design studio, we launched a new research project to create new value from discarded building materials. We took apart waste building materials, such as lumber, bricks, and sample materials, reconstructed them and produced original materials. We displayed the artworks composed of the new materials in the collaboration area of the new office, and it appeals Semba’s Ethical Design visually.

For this office renovation, we held in-house competitions for upcycled furniture design, material research projects with we+ inc., in-house event and study session, and tours of the new office for companies. We feel it is significant that we were able not only to create an ethical office, but also to involve many people in the process and rethink the future of people, community, and environment.

We break the conventional thinking of space creation and work on “Ethical Design”, which is an essential issue from both industrial and social perspectives. In spatial design industry mainly in the commercial market, emphasis is placed on economic rationality, profitability, and novelty. Therefore, the life span from construction to demolition is very short. A space build with a large investment is destroyed in a short period of time, and a large amount of waste is generated. We found the environmentally burdensome methods strange and began to think that we should aim for ethically correct creation, and make proposal that satisfy both sustainability and design. Our new office functions as a place to share and communicate Semba’s vision and ideas between employees, and to disseminate them outside the company. We would like to increase the number of people and co-creation partners, who are interested in the Ethical Design, and to build circulatory society.

Drawing & Planning

For more information, please visit: https://www.semba1008.co.jp/en