Fuji TV Headquarters
The construction of Fuji Television's new headquarters - the Fuji Television Building - began in May 1993 and was completed in June 1996. It is located in the waterfront area of Tokyo's Minato district. The building, designed by Kenzo Tange Associates, become a new landmark thanks to its futuristic geometries that emerge within the dynamic skyline of the Japanese capital. A spaceship that lands on Tokyo bay. The new headquarters is a high-profile next-generation broadcasting center focused on innovation, a new iconic building that can be seen from the recently opened Yurikamome automated monorail. On one side of the new headquarters is located the media tower, which is also home to the Nippon Broadcasting Company, and on the other side is the office tower. Between the towers is a group of large studios arranged side by side. The media and office towers are connected by three enclosed footbridges dubbed "sky corridors."
The headquarters' 4.8-meter-wide corridors provide not only convenient walkways but valuable space for casual talk and unexpected discoveries. The building's design emphasises space and openness, which were important concepts that Fuji Television wants to transmit. The HQ has 25 aboveground and 2 underground floors and it reaches 123.45m of height. Next to the media tower is located a peculiar spherical observation platform, the “Hachitama Spherical Observation Room”, that is open to public and offers unobstructed views of Tokyo and Mount Fuji. It has a surface of 53 square meters of floor with a 32-meter diameter and weighs 1,350 tons. Raising the ball into place was a major engineering challenge which took a total of 9-and-a-half hours. It was balanced horizontally on, and supported by, three beams, before being raised to its finished height of 123 m by hydraulic jacks. The building comprises a total floor surface of 142,800 square meters. The exterior is cladded with salt-resistant titanium and his structure is highly earthquake resistant. Sources (Architectuul.com, designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Fuji_TV_Building,_Tokyo, Michael Brooks, Wikipedia, Nippon News Network, All-Nippon News Network.
