Meyer-Madaus . Bernardy

Replay Center . Tokyo

Vincent Meyer-Madaus . Sebastian Bernardy. Technische Universität Berlin . + archmedium

The Tokyo Replay Center and its programmatic requirements is set to fulfil all Otaku‘s needs in one building.

In order to achieve this one stop shop, the shop area and the private media rooms were designed integrally. Media rooms provide a temporary hideout from Tokyo‘s fast and hectic life. They offer a moment of peace to share with a partner or a number of friends while singing karaoke, playing video games or watching a film. The rooms are conceived as living rooms so for the upmost privacy, they are arranged without neighbors, meaning they float freely in their assigned space. Shopping spaces take up the space around, under and over the media rooms. Analogous to popular video game genre Jump & Run, the visitor is puzzled by the trajectory of the shop, not able to foretell the way and bound to be lost on purpose.

The one guiding element is a handrail changing in color for each part of the shop. Beginning with blue for the Manga area, it soon turns to red for Anime with a gradient in overlap. Green, yellow and white handrails follow for video game, film and cosplay departments with their respective gradients in crossovers. The additional program parts auditorium and multi-purpose space conclude the building: The multi-purpose space sits on top and brings the wildly arranged karaoke/shop system to an end. The way up for each visitor ends with a spectacular 360° view. The auditorium, in need of a slope for an increased view for the audience, sits right under a generous foyer that introduces the building. Each media room is a 4 room entity of which 2, mostly opposing, area built with frosted glass, allowing a silhouette display of both tenants and the outside. The visiting Otakus become a semi-anonymous actor within a concrete frame. The analogies range from internet-like privacy to blurred TV appearances and reflect an important part of the Otaku interpretation. One can stroll around the building, browsing for collectibles and cosplay accessoires and whenever they seek privacy and a rest involving singing or playing games with friends, they immediately go online, on loose display only showing tokens of activity. Several rooms are placed right at the facade generating an outer look of the building with switching insights from clear vision to an illuminated shop to more blurred but at night brightly shining entities of human interaction.