Dappled House 3F / DAQ Office | DDAA / DDAA LAB

We designed a free-address office space for DAQ, a company running iPhone accessories brands Andmesh and Squair, converted from a former French restaurant. The spacious open-plan office seating 24 employees and the cluster of small rooms including a meeting room and executive's room are divided by a black perforated partition wall. We decided to adopt the open plan to bring in natural light through the south and east windows to illuminate the entire office but wanted to avoid providing monotonous seating where each seat is differentiated solely by the amount of sunlight it receives. Taking advantage of the free-address system, we designed various types of seats with different characters including sun-lit window seats with a view; tall desks where one can work standing up or sitting on a high stool; cubicle-type seats (designed in the same size as typical cubicles in manga cafes in Japan) for those who want to concentrate or work alone, in addition to standard desks and chairs.
The manga cafe-type cubicles are enclosed using soft partitions made of felt used for furniture. Zippers installed along the corner edges keep the fabric from loosening, and the inside of each cubicle is equipped with pockets designed to hold A4-size documents and a task light. The easily movable light fixture is casually clipped to a belt attached to partitions in the same way as clipping a pair of glasses or a pen to a shirt pocket.
The impressive perforated partition wall dividing between the office and the cluster of small rooms is modeled after the mesh material of DAQ's iconic product. The perforations visually express the corporate identity on a spatial scale; transmit air and light to alleviate the confined condition of the executive room and meeting room; and allows one to see through the wall. In addition, the perforations are large enough to insert round pegs used as door handles and also as shelf dowels so that they can make shelves at any convenient locations.
Because the existing floor of the French restaurant was reused after polishing and repainting the surface, it was not possible to install electrical wiring under the floor. Instead of using the ceiling, we decided to remove one piece of floorboard and install electrical wiring in the cavity, and then covered it with glass to make the wiring visible.