"Toward the ideal bus terminal."

As a new gateway in front of Tokyo Station, the first phase of the largest bus terminal in Japan, Bus Terminal Tokyo Yaesu has opened in front of Tokyo Station by Urban Renaissance Agency. We provided design direction, including project promotion design, space design, and design management, to realize a bus terminal suitable for the Tokyo Station.

The goal was to improve terminal spaces in Japan, as most are purely utilitarian in design and are lacking in spatial awareness.The spatial form of the bus terminal is a one-room space where movement and stillness coexist. The spatial design concept of "Floating Clouds on a Dark Sky" was created as a guideway for each activity.The whole space was divided into movement space and stillness space with different spatial symbols. The movement space connecting the boarding gates has a darkened high-ceiling with distinct line lightings for wayfinding. On the other hand, stillness space including waiting areas and ticket booths has floating ceiling like a "cloud" illuminated by indirect lighting to create a scene of departure.

The unique curved design details were applied at the corner guards, floor, and ceiling openings to meet both the functional requirement as a public transportation facility and the design to create a sense of the extraordinary. For saving costs, the material is composed of general ones. Instead, their shape or combinations were figured out not to have a boring space.

In such big project, different part of designs tends to lose their integrity due to the difference of ordering entities. However, in this project, we conducted overall design management with issuing "design guidelines" for related works―sign, furniture and so on.

In the sign plan, the priority of information was carefully evaluated and taken into design. The number signs indicating each boarding gate is the most important information for users, so we designed the columns as biggest sign boards to show them, which otherwise could be just obstacles. And this also works as an accent of the entire space.Since the project opens sequentially in three steps, we made it possible to change the sign easily by selecting the zinc-coated steel plate as columns finishings and cutting sheets for the number sign.

Also, for capturing the intention of many stakeholders, we used BIM which can visualize the process of studies easily. This also helped us to realize our concept even in such a large-scale project.

This project can be a challenge to open up the new design field-Bus terminal.