Fab 40: Mori X Hako, Fukuyama City

Keisuke Maeda and UID Architects created this mixed use building in Hiroshima to house their own offices as well as a dental clinic and beauty salon. The MORI×hako building sits on a long narrow plot close to the city's main train station.

See more of the Mori X Hako building

For 34 year-old Maeda, the project was an exercise in increasing urban densities, stacking up dwellings and businesses without ending up with what the architect describes as 'superficial architecture'. By breaking up the site into a series of boxes, the architects have ensured that all tenants get a fair quota of space and light, rather than just the business at the front of the plot.

The wood-lined interiors are characterised by their expansive windows, which gives views through the interior voids to the planted courtyards within. The commercial spaces are decked out in sleek artek and Carl Hansen furniture.

www.maeda-inc.jp/uid

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).