佐野健太建築設計事務所 Kenta SANO & Associates, Architects

Mr.green Shizuoka, JAPAN 2021

“Mr. green” is a customizable salad shop, opened on Gofuku-Cho Shopping Street, in Central Shizuoka City, where you can build your own salad to take out, or to eat in.

The client is a company with three pillars of business: medical service, nursing care and preventive healthcare.  Their vision is to provide good health to society through healthcare. “Mr. green” is a new project by the preventive healthcare department, with the concept of “providing fast food to make healthier bodies”.

“Mr. green” realizes the idea of “fast food”, which is a quick and easy way of consuming food, so that you can eat even when you are engaged in something. But at the same time, contrary to the conventional understanding of fast food, the ingredients used here are locally grown in Shizuoka based on the concept of slow food, thus very nutritious, and fresh.  To make a space that would correspond to these ideas, we planned to use as much natural materials as possible.  Plus, it was important to make a place that has a sense of time: It could either be a place where you can quickly come and get what you want like a pit stop, or like a dock, where you can come and sit for a while to enjoy a bowl of salad.

Specifically, there were three important points we needed to set as a goal.  Based on these three points below, we set sail to work out the themes on forms and what kind of materials and colors to use.

1. The place sells slow food fast to its customers

2. Spatial composition is important for customers to make full use of the semi open-air space

3. The shop is on a busy shopping street: how to catch the eyes of the pedestrians is crucial

Forms:

The main motif is inspired by the circular shape of the Sun, an essential source of agriculture. Its round shape is also a symbol of integrity and symmetry.  Our bodies are also composed of curves, and salads are often served in hemispherical shaped bowls.

Materials:

To be environmentally conscious, we are basically choosing small particles and broken pieces as materials to go along with the texture of chopped salads, where all the ingredients are finely chopped and then combined.  Plus, for the possible expansion of their store networks, we kept it in mind that it was important to be able to keep the company identity simple, for the smaller scale stores to be able to easily incorporate it in the future.

Colors:

While actively incorporating salad colors like green and yellow, which gives positive energy and impression, we also paid respect to the history, culture and dignity Gofuku-Cho as a city has inherited for a long time.  As we also expect quite a few elderly customers come to this place, we decided to use charcoal grey, a lower-saturation color as the base color.

Photographs with circular and ball shapes and salad colors in the background go well with social media.  The first customizable salad shop in Shizuoka has been spreading on social media quite fast, as fast as fast food can be, and they are hoping to be of some help to the health of their neighbors and more.

  • floor area

    139.70㎡

  • completion

    October of 2021

  • architect

    Kenta SANO and Associates, Architects

  • architects in charge

    Kenta SANO

  • Sakutaro KAKEHASHI

  • signage designer

    Kota ABE

  • designer in charge

    Kota ABE

  • plant designer

    Tan

  • designer in charge

    Kaoru ENOMOTO

  • contractor

    Roovice

  • Moe SHIGEHISA