Tokyo-based French architect Emmanuelle Moureaux has pulled off the impossible, and created a whimsical bank branch in Kawaguchi, Japan where customers will hardly mind standing in line. That's because the new Sugamo Shinkin bank, which has dozens of colorful protruding cubes on its façade, looks more like the beloved Pantone Hotel than a utilitarian place where people go to grovel for loans and make deposits. Twelve of the exterior cubes have gardens inside them, with olive trees and seasonal flowers like marigold and lavender planted inside. The architect calls her project the "Rainbow Melody." "The melody spreads happiness and comfort to visitors and to the people in the local community," she writes. Pretty much.
· Emmanuelle Moureaux Completes Fourth Branch for Sugamo Shinkin Bank [Design Boom]
· All Architectural Craziness posts [Curbed National]