What is included in a confidential brief?

Three fields — name, organization, and a paragraph on project scope — followed by a confidentiality acknowledgment. Briefs are read by Fumiko Nakata personally and answered within 14 working days by post or telephone.

Is my brief treated as confidential?

Yes. All briefs are held under the studio's 2011 client-agreement protocol: nothing is documented internally beyond the commissioning principal, and no public record is created without written consent.

What is the minimum project scale the studio accepts?

F. Nakata Studios accepts commissions for projects exceeding $5M in build value. Inquiries below this threshold are respectfully redirected to a network of partner practices.

Can briefs be sent by post instead of the form?

Yes. Written briefs may be addressed to the studio at 5-12-3 Daikanyamacho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0034, Japan. Postal correspondence receives the same 14-day review as the digital form.

Kitakanto Civic Library photographed from the adjacent stone plaza at dusk

01 — Commission

F. Nakata Studios

Architecture that breathes with the city — built in Tokyo, lived across the world.

Begin in writing

A studio accepts perhaps three projects in a hundred. The work begins on paper, addressed to Fumiko Nakata, read in the same hour it arrives.

This page is a confidential intake, not a contact form. The projects we accept begin as a written brief — four hundred words is generous, two is often enough — exchanged by post or encrypted mail between the principal and the commissioner. We do not require a programme, a schedule, or a budget sheet at first reading. We require the question the building is being asked to answer, and a sense of the ground it will stand on.

Each submission is read by Fumiko Nakata personally and reviewed in the studio's Monday session. Of the briefs received last year, 3.7% were taken into commission. The remainder were met with an honest letter explaining why, and where appropriate, an introduction to a peer practice better suited to the brief. We have, in our twenty-eight years, never entered into a scope-change dispute — a record that begins with the way a project is first described.

If you are about to commission a civic, cultural, or high-density residential building — a masterplan, or an adaptive reuse of consequence — please write to us. The Daikanyamacho address sits at the foot of this page. For matters under embargo, mark the envelope to Nakata's attention and we will respond by the same channel.

— Fumiko Nakata, Principal, with the partners and associates of the studio

On the studio's standing

Four figures a peer reviewer will ask for.

3.7% of submitted commissions accepted annually — a deliberate curation that protects design depth.
14 / 18 completed buildings holding third-party-verified net-zero operational energy certification.
11.4 years average client tenure across the studio's 62 institutional partnerships.
0 scope-change disputes on a commissioned project since the 2011 client-agreement restructuring.

A confidential brief

Three lines are enough. A postal address is at the foot of the page for written submissions.

The fields below are read by the principal's office. We treat the contents as confidential by default; please state explicitly if any portion of your brief is under a non-disclosure agreement, embargo, or competitive restriction, and the channel you would prefer us to reply on.

Scope. Civic, cultural, and high-density residential buildings; masterplans; adaptive reuse of consequence. The studio does not accept private villas, residential developer work under thirty units, interior-only engagements, or projects where public documentation is prohibited by the client.
Value. Commissions begin at $5M in build value.
Geography. Projects delivered across eleven countries; studio operates from Tokyo and Montréal.