In October, Partner Albert Giralt and Associate Hiroko Nakatani from the Renzo Piano Building Workshop design team, together with colleagues from Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei, visited a specialist timber fabrication plant to see production for the Marunouchi Tokio Marine headquarters underway. On the factory floor, domestic Japanese timber is shaped into the building’s signature hybrid columns - elements that will define one of the world’s largest timber-hybrid office buildings. This Tokyo project uses wood at a scale unprecedented for a Japanese high-rise, with many of the load-bearing columns in wood and cross-laminated timber forming the floor structure. Once assembled, these elements will create a warm and singular natural interior and support the project’s environmental ambitions, including reduced embodied carbon, the use of FSC-certified timber from responsibly managed forests, and a target of LEED Platinum certification.
