What better way to build excitement and encourage new perceptions than to engage people through play?

Japanese company Mitsui Real Estate Residential recently launched the ‘Waku Waku Water Front’ campaign (with Yomiko Advertising) in Tokyo, which aims to get people all ‘waku waku’ (excited) about the city’s waterfront area.

Waku Waku Station is an information booth linked to the campaign, and also functions as a reception desk for associated ‘treasure hunt’ activities in the area.

Torafu Architects designed the 12.9-square-metre booth, which sits within a shopping mall, as a gigantic piece of play equipment. The aim was encourage family fun as well as the rediscovery of Tokyo’s waterfront charm.

The booth was imagined as a collection of building blocks that have been assembled into walls and a counter. The shapes were inspired by the yachts, boats, houses and buildings in the bay area, and the blocks were assembled in a manner that suggests a stacking process is underway.

Gaps between the blocks are proving irresistible to kids, who are using them as ‘secret’ child-size doorways. The blocks themselves can serve as picture-puzzle boards or cupboards. At the front, the surfaces of two adjacent blocks fold down to become a self-supporting bench.

Building blocks are easily recognisable objects, and evoking them at a larger-than-life scale with bold colours almost guarantees the capturing of attention, if not interaction.

It’s not hard to imagine visitors to Waku Waku Station heading out to the waterfront with treasure hunt maps in hand and a waku waku state of mind.

Waku Waku Station will be in place at Urban Dock LaLaport Toyosu until the end of March 2013. Photos by Daici Ano.

Torafu Architects
torafu.com