Tower of Power

Bringing Tokyo to new heights with Azabudai Hills, Club architect Fred Clarke reflects on collaborative design, sustainability and building things that last.

When Mori Building opened its latest megaproject across the street from the Club last November, media coverage was saturated with images of its signature Garden Plaza B.

Designed by London’s Heatherwick Studio, its façade seems to be melting onto Sakurada Dori.

What few people realized, however, is that other major portions of the Azabudai Hills project were designed by Club architect Fred Clarke. On the heels of the opening, the cofounder of Connecticut-based Pelli Clarke & Partners shares his vision for the neighboring landmarks.

The $4.2 billion, 8.1-hectare Azabudai Hills was 30 years in the making and is the latest incarnation of Mori Building cofounder Minoru Mori’s dream of “vertical garden cities.” Steps away from the Club, Mori JP Tower, the tallest building in Japan at 325 meters, offers stunning panoramic views of the capital and allows visitors to look down on Tokyo Tower to the southwest.

For Clarke and his team, designing the skyscraper was a natural step after having created icons such as Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers in 1999, the Landmark in Abu Dhabi in 2013, as well as Salesforce Tower on San Francisco’s Mission Street in 2018. The architectural firm is active in most regions of the world and has designed everything from a hospital for women and children in Qatar to a Japanese sake brewery in New York. What distinguishes Azabudai Hills, however, is that it’s a multipurpose complex envisioned by separate teams of architects: Pelli Clarke, which did the site’s soaring office and residential towers, and Heatherwick Studio, which crafted the undulating groundscape structures.

“We worked separately, but the two designs are complementary,” says Clarke. “Better cities are the ones that are not homogeneous. The pieces are mutually supportive and full of surprises. Our building is big and prominent, but it has a serene presence. I see it as a figure wearing a formal kimono and standing in a garden, which Heatherwick designed. It’s a beautiful environment and a complimentary set of visual impressions.”

Azabudai Hills and the Club were built over a decade apart and differ in their purpose, but share common points in their collaborative design process, notes Clarke. The Pelli Clarke team works with the client to determine the best vision for any given building. For the Club, figuring out how the family functions and business functions could be separate parts of an integrated structure was key.

“We never enter any project knowing the answer,” he says. “It’s a bit like a mystery story. You’re examining the clues, and you know there’s an answer in there somewhere. We considered every Club Member a client, and we took six months or so at the beginning to understand their patterns and priorities.”

Clarke has a long history of working in Tokyo. Even before he and Cesar Pelli founded their firm in 1977, he was planning the US Embassy (1976) and meeting the famous Metabolist architect Kisho Kurokawa in 1972, when the latter’s Nakagin Capsule Tower was erected. In the half-century since, the Japanese capital has changed dramatically. Hubs such as Shinjuku and Shibuya are evolving from commuter transfer points into centers to work and live. Tokyo is also expanding upward: skyscrapers are proliferating and reaching new heights, including supertall structures like Tokyo Skytree and the Mori JP Tower.

Another important trend is the need to make buildings as safe and resilient as possible. Threatened by earthquakes, typhoons and other hazards, Tokyo architecture must withstand threats and offer sanctuary. Azabudai Hills, for instance, has earthquake-resistant structural features and independent power supplies to allow businesses to continue operating even in major temblors. The site is also designed to be an evacuation center for 3,600 people in emergencies.

Meanwhile, unlike the scrap-and-build architecture of the past, when structures were replaced every few decades, buildings in Tokyo are increasingly made to last.

“The Club is a very good example of a building that was designed to last well over 100 years. To do that, you have to be sure that the fundamental materials can last for a very long time and that the building can adapt technologically,” explains Clarke.

“Buildings being built today in Japan are more expensive than in the past and that’s where sustainability factors in. If it’s not sustainable, handsome and pleasant, people are not going to take care of it or value it. I think the ultimate goal of almost every architect is you hope people like your buildings well enough to maintain and protect them for decades and centuries.”