Hisamitsu Museum

Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical celebrated its 170th anniversary in 2017. As part of its commemorative project, it planned a corporate museum in front of its Kyushu headquarters in Tosu-shi, Saga Prefecture, where it was founded. It presents the philosophies of its past managers, and the company’s history, from foundation to the present, to convey them to future generations. To make the architecture itself embody the corporate mindset of aiming for further progress towards the 200th anniversary, a glass box is cantilevered out 4 m into space from the side of a simple rectangular volume, in a design that gives a feeling of buoyancy. The form of the building follows the motif of “a bird leaping out of established frameworks to beat its wings freely.” It uses a void slab to lighten the structural frame, as well as tensioning with PC steel cables in floor slabs and reversed beams, to achieve a cantilever of over 4 m. To contribute to the local and global environment, existing trees on the site are left in place wherever possible, and a 170-year-old Japanese hackberry tree which has watched over the company since its foundation was reused as furniture, in a plan that values limited resources. Low-E glass is used throughout, to greatly reduce thermal loads. In collaboration with the construction company, the whole building is lit with LEDs, the air conditioning is narrowly zoned, and many energy-saving technologies, such as BEMS and various control systems, have been used. Solar power generation panels have been installed across the entire roof. These efforts to save and create energy made this the first “ZEB” (Zero Emission Building) in Saga Prefecture, at a 103% energy saving rate, and it has received BELS certification.