Rainbow Millefeuille Bank by Emmanuelle Moureaux Architecture

Horizontal layers of colour protrude out from the facade of this bank branch in Tokyo by Tokyo-based french architect Emmanuelle Moureaux.By night each of the twelve colour bands of the Sugamo Shinkin Bank are brightly illuminated. Inside, an ellipsoid-shaped open ceiling allows natural light to spill into the lobby from skylights on the third floor. The light is carried through clear curved glass tubes that pass through the floors and ceilings into the central atrium.

‘I imagined a lot of layers piled up to the sky,’ explains architect Emmanuelle Moureaux. ‘The top layers are shades of blue to flow together with the sky.The most difficult challenge was to design these three oval “voids” and their curved glass lines,’ Moureaux recalls.Inside, tellers and ATMs are on the first floor, alongside a waiting room. The ceiling and walls are covered with dandelion-like ‘puffs’ that float across the space.The second storey houses private meeting rooms, offices and cafeteria, while the third floor is reserved for staff use. The site was very noisy, on a big street with lots of cars and highrise buidlings,’ Moureaux recalls. ‘I decided to create a building where people naturally look up, in order to breathe and relax.’