Capcom Offices – Vancouver
DIALOG designed the new offices for gaming manufacturer and distributor Capcom, located in Vancouver, Canada.
Gaming Goes Zen – In May 2017, DIALOG’s Vancouver interior design team turned Gaming office design on its head with Capcom’s new Canadian Headquarters. Capcom wanted to relocate to a more urban, transit oriented building that would ease employee’s commute. Quietly nestled in a sleepy business park along Greater Vancouver’s Sky train line in Burnaby, British Columbia, is where DIALOG and Capcom selected 52,000 sq ft of raw shell space in the new mixed-use development, Solo by Bosa Properties.
Pressures be gone, Capcom’s new office design has been coined ‘CapCalm’. CapCalm is a deliberate response to the maturing gaming industry, Capcom’s goals within said industry, and the end-user experience – all folded neatly within the context of Capcom’s Japanese roots.
Capcom is the cherished developer of beloved arcade games such as Dead Rising, Street Fighter and Megaman. A legacy gaming firm, Capcom has been an industry leader for over 25 years. While the company was founded and is headquartered out of Japan, its new Canadian Headquarters pays homage to their deep seeded Japanese roots and sends a message that Capcom is reinvesting in its Canadian HQ. They’re in Vancouver to stay, and they’re not shy of attracting your top talent.
Zen Around Every Corner – Gaming company office designs are typically loud and busy. DIALOG and Capcom steered away from these precedents and focused on answering the specific needs laid out before them. Capcom wanted a refined space that offered moments of reflection, where visitors and employees could be inspired by the company’s legacy, harnessed in a design that represented their future. Surprisingly, what emerged through an exercise with the client – where they worked together to determine that Capcom wanted to separate themselves from the pack – was a design direction called ¬CapCalm.
What’s materialized is a hyper-real Zen experience. DIALOG drew inspiration from traditional elements of Japanese design like wood, reflection ponds, origami, shoji screens and tatami mats. They extrapolated elements of these inspirations and re-interpreted them throughout the space.
Walking into the welcome area, the reception desk takes on the sharp angles of folded pieces of paper- immediately visitors are welcomed with a nod to the meditative practice of origami. Further expressing this idea are the many faceted origami forms that fold their way through the space. This idea is expressed through furniture pieces and the angular encased meeting rooms.
There is no shortage of collaboration at Capcom, so generous amounts of open space was allocated to create breakout-rooms/impromptu collaborative working environments. The impetuous for the custom wood slat ceilings seen throughout the space was a tatami mat. These ceilings clearly define where the collaborative nodes are throughout the space. Each stick of wood is rotated to mimic the shapes of a traditional tatami mat. If you find yourself under a wood ceiling you will find mobile white board walls accompanied with soft like pebble furniture. These are life size interpretation of the pebbles found in the sand gardens on each floor. These gardens delineate central meeting rooms, and are an opportunity for active meditation and reflection.
Art in the Workspace – DIALOG worked with Capcom’s animators to develop a two-story projection featuring one of a kind Capcom Koi that gently swim in and out of a two-story void. In that same vein, DIALOG visually connected the floors by cutting out an atrium space that would house a custom digital koi pond. A ‘ring-road’ corridor connects employees to the different points of discovery throughout the space. Along this walk you’ll find a curated selection of Capcom’s intellectual property. Life-size figurines and hand sketches stand out against the space’s refined and elegant pallet.
Gaming is Growing Up – Capcom Vancouver has a grownup outlook on the gaming world. The business of play is a serious one. It’s not just about gaming anymore. DIALOG and Capcom looked above and beyond the traditional millennial office spaces that are typically loud and busy. Capcom took the road less travelled. They wanted a refined space that offered moments of reflection, where visitors and employees could be inspired by the company’s legacy, harnessed in a design that represented their future. The CapCalm execution breathes relaxation into the minds of employees, alleviating stress by offering relief from the over-stimuli found in typical gaming office designs.
Designer: DIALOG
Design Team: Designers – Janay Koldinges, Nicole Broughton, Alexa Bustamante; Architect – Martin Neilsen
Contractor: Turner Construction
Photography: Ema Peter
