By Mimi Zeiger

The term “collaboration” has gotten a bit played out. In reference to architecture and design, its ideal of a seamless practice can be applied equally to a small husband-wife office or the relationship between an architect and a team of engineering consultants. Add the word “global,” and it becomes a euphemism for a local firm executing a star­chitect vision. Located in Tokyo, Airspace – a multi-use building with an intricate facade – is the result of a unique global exchange, one that escapes cliche.

The project is a result of two very different collaborations, or a collaboration within a collaboration, the first, separated by the Pacific Ocean, between Berkeley-based architect Thom Faulders and Hajime Masubuchi of Studio M in Tokyo. Masubuchi commissioned Faulders to design a facade to wrap the minimalist glass and steel structure already taking shape. While Studio M set up the context and constraints, Masubuchi gave the stateside architect design independence. The second collaboration took place between Faulders and architect Sean Ahlquist (formerly a resident of San Francisco and currently a student in the emergent technologies and design program at the Architecture Association in London) of Proces2, who developed the skin digitally.

“With most collaboration, we try to be all on the same page at the end, but in this case there was a dualism,” explains Faulders. “Having a large ocean between us created a challenging but wonderful opportunity to forget some of the necessary realities some projects have. We felt we were designing into some abstract other, but we were always aware of the parameters. Each architect had his own design strategy and agenda, but we had faith that when they merged something would happen.”

Masubuchi, who was Faulders’ student at the California College of the Arts (CCA) and later worked in his office, understood his mentor’s penchant for creating depth within a flat surface. The Japanese architect is as reserved as Faul­ders is loquacious; their personalities, minimalist and expressive, respectively, carry over into both schemes. “I was expecting to see something like you never see,” Masubuchi says of the facade. “I was expecting him to design something…not strange, but interesting.”