This Edible Office Grows its Own Lunch

Rows of cubicles, the din of fluorescent lights, packets of instant powdered coffee—you won’t find any of these things at the Pasona Group’s new headquarters in downtown Tokyo. Instead, you’ll see open workspaces, natural sunlight, and plants, everywhere: tomato vines suspended over conference rooms, lemon and passion fruit trees scattered between meeting spaces, and tiny sprouts growing under benches. Best of all, these delectable flora are later harvested, prepared, and served at the building’s cafeterias. Lucky Pasona employees!

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NYC-based firm Kono Designs has transformed Pasona’s nine-story, 215,000-square-foot corporate office into an omnivore’s delight, with a double-skin green facade, offices, an auditorium, cafeterias, a rooftop garden, and urban farming facilities integrated within the building. The green space comprises 43,000 square feet with 200 species, including fruits, vegetables, and rice. (Seriously, the main lobby has a rice paddy—and a broccoli field!) “It is the largest and most direct farm-to-table of its kind ever realized inside an office building in Japan,” says Kono in a statement.

Pasona HQ also offers public seminars, lectures, and internships, hoping to boost Japan’s dwindling farming industry and equip a new generation of growers with the business acumen and hands-on experience to start their own traditional or urban farms. It’s a truly unique workplace environment that creates a better working environment and engages the wider Tokyo community by showcasing the benefits and technology of urban agriculture. And it’s beautiful.

Do you think it would give your productivity a boost working in a green office environment like this?

This project won the 2013 Architizer A+ Popular Vote Award in the workspace category. See the full list of winners here.

This post is part of the GOOD community's 50 Building Blocks of Citizenship—weekly steps to being an active, engaged global citizen. This week: Plant a Guerrilla Garden. Follow along and join the conversation at good.is/citizenship and on Twitter at #goodcitizen.