PROJECT #:

98-074

PROJECT NAME:

Organic Building

LOCATION:

Osaka, JAPAN

COMPLETION DATE:

Summer, 1993

ARCHITECT:

Gaetano Pesce
Pesce, Ltd.
543 Broadway, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10012 USA

The Organic Building occupies a corner site in the heart of Osaka’s downtown corridor. With 7052 square meters of interior space on nine stories, it houses restaurant and retail tenants on the street and second floor levels, and offices above. This tower was conceived to accommodate commercial functions while simultaneously creating a meaningful symbol for the future growth and vitality of Japan’s second largest city.

Design was initially inspired by the concept of the garden as a metaphor for the variety, dynamism and potential of urban community. Because property in Osaka is densely packed and extraordinarily expensive, addition of a free-standing garden to the client’s existing program was impossible. Thus the Organic Building was designed to be a vertical garden in itself, achieving an architectural ideal suggested on paper for epochs but never before effectively accomplished.

Facades of the Organic Building take their conceptual cue from bamboo, Japan’s most identifying garden element. Certain properties of bamboo - its distinctive verticality, undulating surface, and tendency to grow into a network of interlocking but nonetheless unique spaces -- inspired the building’s "wavy" skin and an arrangement of different windows that permits individualized spatial experiences from inside the tower. In high contrast to the uniformly gray neighborhood, facades are steel-encased concrete panels glazed with a red finish that feature extruding pockets. Lined with fiberglass planters, these pockets contain more than 80 types of indigenous plants and trees selected in collaboration with Osaka horticulturists. The result is an abundant, visually stunning vertical garden concealing a complex, computer-controlled hydrating system of mechanical pipes that continuously nourishes and sustains the plants.

The Organic Building was completed in 1993. In 1994 the project was declared a civic landmark by the City of Osaka, which has undertaken its maintenance in perpetuity.