OMA has taken a step closer to the completion of its first tower in Tokyo, following the announcement that the Toranomon Hills Station Tower will open in the Fall of 2023. Part of the wider Toranomon Hills development, the mixed-use tower will reach 873 feet in height, and will hold offices, commercial spaces, hotels, and an interactive events facility named TOKYO NODE.

The lower section of the tower is imagined as a “large funnel” designed to draw the public inward. The dominant architectural element of the tower’s base is the T-DECK, a large-scale pedestrian bridge that links the building to the broader development, and creates two public zones. The lower zone, dubbed the ‘Station Atrium,’ manifests as a three-story concourse which the design team believes “provides an exciting sense of arrival.”

Above the base, the tower’s form is angled from several vantage points to create new sightlines between the building and the surrounding city. To the north, the form narrows as it reaches the top in deference to the Imperial Palace, while the southern facade widens as it rises to maximize views of the Tokyo skyline.

The tower is capped by a public interactive communication facility named TOKYO NODE, described by the team as a “hybrid of flexible event space and innovative forum.” Above, the roof will house a landscaped terrace with an infinity pool and flexible event space.

“The Station Tower confronts and resonates with the three-dimensionality of Tokyo’s urban environment that steers people through stacks and layers of places and activities,” said OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu about the scheme. “It’s shaped by a central activity band that allows life around the tower to lead into, up and over, and through its potentially sobering scale. Carved, bisected and shifted in form from base to top, it spatially and programmatically opens up to new links — to Shintora-dori, the bay area, the new pedestrian and green network of Toranomon Hills Area, the greater Tokyo Metro network, and the global network of creatives that will activate TOKYO NODE.”

News of the scheme comes in the same week that OMA was named the winner of an international competition to deliver the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy. In late December, meanwhile, the firm completed its third exhibition design in collaboration with Dior.

Earlier in December, OMA completed their stepped Greenpoint Landing towers in Brooklyn, while in November, it was announced that OMA and Cooper Robertson’s Buffalo AKG Museum restoration would open in May 2023.