OMA and Partner Shohei Shigematsu have shared new photos of their just-completed work on the Toranomon Hills Station Tower project for developer Mori Building Co. in Tokyo.

The first high-rise to be completed inside the studio’s larger Toranomon Hills mixed-use district overlooks the terminus of Shintora-dori Avenue, whose axis is extended through a split base containing a Metro station and shopping area. This creates an interface between city and the building that the architects say is essential to their design’s public character, an element that culminates in a top-level cultural center called TOKYO NODE.

In between the public elements, the total 873-foot tower contains 32 levels of office spaces, a hotel, and two restaurants. Users will approach via an elevated T-Deck pedestrian walkway that connects the site to the surrounding development. Base-level activities are extended vertically in a band that brings together the two offset trapezoidal slabs into one volume. The tower’s form tapers on opposing ends of either in order to create vantage points in the north-south orientations. A sky garden with infinity pool provides further views of the skyline in a finishing touch on the uppermost floor. 

A smaller four-story Glass Rock building is also open at street level, adjacent to the entrance to the light-filled station atrium. Shigematsu says the project creates a “multilayered, three-dimensional experience of space” that he attributed as a “signature of life in Tokyo.” 

The building includes art commissions from Leo Villareal, Larry Bell, and others. It will be inaugurated with another site-specific work by Rhizomatiks x ELEVENPLAY.

At 49 stories, it is Shigematsu’s largest completed work to date, in addition to being OMA’s first-ever ground-up construction in the city. Total costs have been reported at 400 billion yen (or about $2.6 billion USD). The rest of Toranomon Hills includes another new 36-story business tower and 54-story residential building (the country’s tallest non-commercial high-rise) from Ingenhoven Architects, in addition to the KPF-designed Mori Tower, which was completed in 2014. 

Shigematsu added finally: “It was fun and rewarding to create a vision for a project of this scale and complexity with Mori Building and work in Japan with a great team of collaborators, whose expertise and dedication to craft and execution were essential to the project. I look forward to seeing the new building enhance existing urban relationships and start to create new ones.”

OMA will begin working soon on the construction of its new 84,000-square-foot Harajuku Quest Center mixed-use and retail project at the intersection of the city’s Omotesando and Oku-Harajuku districts. Its delivery is expected by February of 2025. Heatherwick Studio is also wrapping up work nearby on its $4.4 billion Toranomon-Azabudai mixed-use and shopping redevelopment for the end of the year.