What it had to solve
The time scale from forest to lumber to architecture is hard to grasp from materials or footage, so the 80th-anniversary project needed stakeholders to feel the philosophy bodily, inside the firm's own HANEDA SKY CAMPUS.
The idea
A Vision Pro walk through the firm's real HQ where seedlings become forest and timber becomes building — dappled light guides, a wooden handle adds scent.
How it works
MESON handled planning, experience design, direction, 3DCG and app implementation; Azusa Sekkei's AX-team led filming, 3D scanning and modeling. Wood Entrance opens on founder Fumien Kiyota's handwritten words; Gate Forest grows a seedling into forest in stage-style CG mixed with stereoscopic forestry footage and 3D scans; Archi Runway turns the campus runway space into a tunnel gallery on environment, society and mind-body.
What it did
No visitor metrics; the firms plan to expand the experience beyond the fixed site into exhibitions and use it to open future work. Per the announcement, it aims to build client trust in the firm's wood expertise and employee pride internally.
Background
To mark its 80th anniversary in 2026, Tokyo architecture firm Azusa Sekkei (梓設計) co-created 'Immersive Wood Gallery' with XR studio MESON and its research arm AIR: an Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality walkthrough of its own HANEDA SKY CAMPUS headquarters that stages the cycle from forest to timber to building as visitors physically walk the office.
The experience runs on 'komorebi' (dappled light) cues that guide gaze and pace. It opens at a Wood Entrance carrying founder Fumien Kiyota's handwritten messages; Gate Forest grows a seedling into dense forest in stage-style CG, mixed with stereoscopic footage and 3D scans gathered on real forestry sites; Archi Runway uses the campus's runway-like space as a tunnel gallery presenting the firm's wood architecture through environment, society and mind-body viewpoints, with an ending tied to the Haneda location.
A turned-wood handle built for holding the headset adds the material's grain and scent, and narration plus sounds recorded in an actual forest close the sensory loop — an explicitly multimodal design covering sight, hearing, touch and smell, planned under AIR's '300-Year Wood Initiative' research on treating forestry, milling, design and operation as one cycle.
Why it lands
The decades-long span from forest to building kept defeating documents and video, so the firm chose embodiment — walking its own headquarters — as the medium.
The wooden headset handle adds touch and smell, the senses digital rendering cannot fake, tying the XR story back to wood as physical material.
The gallery doubles as brand communication aimed at two audiences at once: clients who must trust the firm's wood expertise, and employees who should feel pride and ownership.
What you can take
When a story's timescale defeats slides and video, change the medium to the body: let people walk through decades in an hour.
Since then
Azusa Sekkei and MESON plan to take the experience beyond the fixed site into exhibition showings and other formats, and to use the empathy it generates as a bridge to future commissions. No visitor numbers are recorded in the announcement.
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