Prada Flagship Store in Tokyo
Prada’s new Epicentre Store in Tokyo is set apart at the corner of its site, creating an open urban space that is a rare luxury in Japan. The free, crystalline form of the structure resulted from an exploitation of the maximum permissible height and the observance of the requisite building lines and spacings. The rhomboid facade framework is clad with convex, concave and flat sheets of glass, which create a faceted, mirror-like effect. Internally and externally, the appearance is dominated by the structural elements. The floors are supported by the facade framing and three vertical steel cores, with additional bracing provided by horizontal hollow-steel sections. Double-height spaces around the staircases and along the facades help to increase the impression of a spatial continuum, while the vertical cores, rounded at the corners, serve to articulate the interior into various zones.
