Tanuki Noboru Building Sapporo, Hokkaido shopping arcade design, Japanese commercial property photos

Tanuki Noboru Building in Hokkaido

12 August 2025

Design: MOTIVE Inc.

Location: Tanuki Koji Shopping Street, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

Photos: Ikuya SASAKI, MOTIVE Inc.

Tanuki Noboru Building, Hokkaido, northern Japan

The Tanuki Koji Shopping Street is a covered shopping arcade in the heart of Sapporo, Japan, that extends for approximately 900 meters from east to west. The Tanuki Noboru Building is a small commercial building constructed along the arcade. The construction site conditions were very unique – on three sides, the site was surrounded by buildings, while the front side bordered a pedestrian walkway (the shopping arcade).

This meant that construction materials and waste could only be transported in and out during the limited time after neighbouring stores in the arcade closed and before they reopened again. The use of a large crane was also very difficult due to these conditions. Thus, as well as the building itself, the architectural design needed to consider the process and method of construction.

One example of this was the use of cast-in-place formwork, in which the formwork material used in casting the concrete of the building frame, which normally ends up as waste material, remains in place and serves as the finishing material. This approach reduces waste and minimizes the quantity of materials transported in and out of the site.

While the construction of this building incorporates innovative processes and techniques that are not visible, there are also some distinctive innovations in its visible elements. Typically, stores in shopping arcades protrude into the space of the pedestrian walkway to position their wares closer to passers-by, to grab more attention. In contrast, the Tanuki Noboru Building has set back its façade from the pedestrian walkway by a significant distance, in order to create a unique atrium space within the shopping arcade.

Instead of reducing valuable retail space, the atrium space enables the store to draw in natural light, a precious resource in Sapporo’s cold and snowy climate. This unusual atrium space successfully pulls in not only natural light, but also the attention and energy of the shopping arcade.

The wayfinding design is also aligned with the architectural intent of drawing in light, brightness, and liveliness. The stone pavement tiles in the atrium are laid obliquely to suggest a flow line into the building, as if subtly directing passers-by from the arcade. By whitening part of the joints between pavement tiles, lines are formed to reinforce the inward “pull” of visitors. At the same time, these lines appear like rays of light reflecting into the interior of the building, where light cannot actually reach.

This is an interesting attempt to display a line of flow for guiding people using the minimal design elements of pavement tile layout and tile joints.
These “rays of light” on the pavement extend deep into the building as far as the elevator, and lead visitors to the entrances of each building tenant when they arrive at each floor.

Interestingly, each tenant’s nameplate is rendered using the same crosspieces used to fix the cast-in-place formwork in position during construction. There is a myth in Japan that suggests that tanuki (raccoon dogs) are mischievous animals capable of assuming different forms and playing tricks on humans. The restroom signs, which appear different when viewed from the side and the front, embody the playful image of the tanuki in a way that suitably represents a commercial building on the Tanuki Koji Shopping Street. The hiragana character “ru” in the logo of the building’s name, Tanuki Noboru (“tanuki climbs”), is a stylized depiction of a transformed tanuki playing hide-and-seek.

Tanuki Noboru Building in Hokkaido, Japan – Building Information

Architecture: MOTIVE Inc.

Design Category: Wayfinding System
Location: Hokkaido, Japan
Client: ENDO REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT CO., LTD.
Completion Date: December 2021
Type: Commercial building

Designer: Takuya WAKIZAKI
Architect: TAKENAKA CORPORATION

About MOTIVE Inc.

Based in Tokyo, MOTIVE Inc. was established by Takuya WAKIZAKI in 2019. The firm engages primarily in orientation design = environmental information design.

The morning sun rises to the east. The smell of the tide tells you that the sea is near. When you see the light ahead of the tunnel, you can find your way out. Takuya Wakizaki believes that humans have the ability to adapt and act in the environment by receiving the “stimulus = information” emitted by the environment.

How do the various “Stimulus = Information” in the world act on the brain, mind, and body to become the “motive” in which people adapt to their environment and act? What is the difference between information that leads to “motive”, and information that does not?

Just as furniture designers draw repeatedly on the human body to make comfortable chairs, the firm draws on human ‘thinking’ and ‘motive’ to work on orientation design = environmental information design.