Press Release
Jam Base Workplace Interior by surDL Receives the Silver A' Design Award in Interior Space and Exhibition Design
The international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition recognizes surDL for interior space and exhibition design
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 19, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ Jam Base Workplace Interior by surDL, designed for ORIX Real Estate Corporation, has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Interior Space and Exhibition Design category, A' Design Award & Competition has announced. The result belongs to the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The Silver A' Design Award Explained
The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.
About Jam Base Workplace Interior
Jam Base is a co creation space located in Grand Green Osaka, conceived as part park and part building. Designed for unexpected encounters, it acts as a platform where diverse users meet and create together. Guided by Midori, Yohaku, and Gocha Gocha, the architecture centers on a central atrium with multi level zones and intersecting circulation that allow activities to overlap. Subtle spatial cues support gathering and interaction. Rather than prescribing fixed programs, the space evolves with its people, functioning as a living collective that fosters collaboration and urban vitality.
About surDL
surDL is a Tokyo-based design studio founded by Makoto Inagaki. The studio works across architecture, interior design, exhibition design, and creative direction, developing spatial experiences that connect people and context. surDL approaches design through engagement with users and environments, creating spaces that evolve through use. The practice contributes to contemporary spatial design through an approach that integrates context, user behavior, and spatial thinking over time and across different environments, emphasizing adaptability, continuity, and interaction within changing social and cultural conditions.
Award Record
This recognition makes surDL a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
About the A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award
The A' Interior Design Award is an international interior design competition recognizing good interior designs by interior designers and architects worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to interior designers, interior architects, architects and decorators from all countries. Typical entries include residential interiors, restaurants, hotels, offices, galleries and retail stores. The awarded interior designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/interior
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/181508
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/181508
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!181508
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/372920
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://surdl.com/
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Jam Base Workplace Interior
- Function
- Workplace Interior
- Category
- Interior Space and Exhibition Design
- Discipline
- Spatial Design
- Industry
- Architecture and Packaging & Retail
- Colors
- Dim Gray, Dark Slate Gray, Gainsboro, Peru and Black
- Images
- 5
- Client
- ORIX Real Estate Corporation
The Recognition
- Laureate
- surDL
- Country
- Japan
- Recognition
- Silver A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #181508
Credits
- Team
- Makoto Inagaki (surDL), Mengxi Li (surDL), Hagane Watanabe (surDL), Mika Kamemura (surDL), Nikken Sekkei Ltd, Takahiro Oka (Nikken Sekkei Ltd), Takafumi Yamamoto (Nikken Sekkei Ltd) and Takenaka Corporation
- Image Credits
- Photographer Taichi Misonoo; Photographer Akira Ito; Photographer Nacása & Partners Inc.; Photographer Taichi Misonoo Video Credits: WOW inc.
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Jam Base is a hybrid spatial ecosystem that dissolves the boundaries between park and building to catalyze serendipitous encounters. Designed as a co-creation hub within Grand Green Osaka, it enables diverse users to converge and generate new value. Obliquely oriented volumes and intersecting circulation around a central atrium materialize simultaneous activities. Conceived as an organic collective, the space evolves through the actions and relationships of its participants. What sets Jam Base apart is its unfinished "Yohaku" quality shaped by "Gocha Gocha," a vibrant diversity that acts as a catalyst for connection.
- Inspiration
- Jam Base was conceived with a vision to redefine how co-creation functions within a city: a spatial system that transforms the urban environment into a platform for collective creativity. It connects business, education, government, and local communities where ideas meet by chance. Guided by the Japanese concepts of Midori, Yohaku, and Gocha Gocha, the design encourages spontaneous collaboration. Through its atrium and intersecting circulation, everyday encounters become a driver for innovation.
- Research
- The design research focused on how spatial configuration can stimulate unexpected interactions in urban environments. Through analysis of user behavior, circulation patterns, and co-creation ecosystems, the project explores how architecture can act as a catalyst for collective creativity. The outcome demonstrates how spatial openness and layered circulation can generate new relationships, activities, and evolving uses over time.
- Challenge
- The greatest challenge was creating a facility that could stimulate innovation in Japan's urban environment. It had to move beyond a conventional workplace. The design embraced ambiguity and unfinished architecture shaped by users. Excessive openness risked compromising safety, requiring careful zoning and circulation planning. Realizing Gocha Gocha as a creative driver became the core strategy, balancing diversity and spatial control.
- Realization and Technology
- spatial planning, circulation design, mixed-use programming, adaptive architecture, interior-exterior integration, user-driven space, environmental graphics, modular furniture, flexible layout systems
- Operation and Interaction
- The space is intentionally left open-ended, allowing users to actively shape and redefine its functions over time. Through continuous use, the environment evolves dynamically, reflecting the diversity of its participants and their interactions. By integrating open programs and flexible spatial configurations, the design supports spontaneous encounters and ongoing transformation.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project was initiated in 2014 as part of the Grand Green Osaka urban redevelopment in Osaka, Japan. Planning and design were carried out between 2019 and 2020, and the project was completed and opened in September 2024 in the Umekita district of Osaka.
- Specifications
- Jam Base is a mixed use complex totaling 10000 sqm, centered on a nine story main tower within Grand Green Osaka. Diagonally arranged volumes create overlap, allowing wind flow and spatial openness. Organized around a central atrium, its three dimensional layout enables intersecting sightlines and movement. The project includes 13,920 sqm of painted surfaces in 51 colors, 121 graphic works, 1,001 books, 1,062 plants, 1,490 chairs, and 3,415 furniture pieces. Wood, metal, and plaster finishes support long term use with flexible layouts for renewal.
- Keywords
- co-creation hub, hybrid architecture, urban platform, spatial ecosystem, serendipity, adaptive space, Japanese design philosophy, mixed-use architecture, collaborative space, innovation hub, spatial ecosystem
