Urban farm at Pasona Group offices
Location: Tokyo
Architect Kono Designs
Completed: 2010

Many of us spend a good deal of our lives interacting with a virtual environment, though computers and doing this in offices with mostly artificial lighting and synthetic furniture can leave us feeling a million miles away from the natural world. Biophilic design aims to bring natural materials into these 'unnatural' environments - but this 'indoor farm' in an office in Tokyo goes a step further by allowing - and encouraging - office workers to grow their own food, essentially bringing a flavour of agricultural life into the life of the modern office worker.

Using both hydroponic and soil-based farming, the design puts crops and office workers in a common space. For example, tomato vines are suspended above conference tables, lemon and passion fruit trees are used as partitions for meeting spaces, salad leaves are grown inside seminar rooms and bean sprouts are grown under benches.