‘For an issue dedicated to banking in the future, GQ Japan approached CIA Tokyo and Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA) to develop concepts around this premise. Our work focused on a 33 meter high building on corner site in central Tokyo. The exterior design is a smooth metal and glass surface that shifts and distorts according to views and internal programs. The window system and the GQ brand colors, black and white, interact to become a large scale icon or graphic logo, a technique common to NMDA projects. Like an automobile, the surface is smooth but the high contrast elements and accentuated seams and joints articulate the set of functions that go into a new bank, ie public lounges, private offices, and meeting rooms. The unique pattern of the façade describes the interactivity of people in the bank, while at the same time it suggests the flow of money in the circuitry of our lives. Indeed, the electronic world treats money as a purely digital medium, a currency not of paper but of abstract value. We are trying to reveal this system in our design.

On the inside, highly sophisticated ATM machines project holographic images of real banking people. This is the future of banking service ‘on the street’, a virtual expert speaking with a real customer. On the upper floors of this branch are lounge spaces that are in many ways like a club where people can rely on experts to serve them a customized banking strategy with a cinematic backdrop of projections and city panoramas to surrounds them. These spaces and their smooth architectural forms remind the client that experience is the main thing and that new design can deliver it.’