Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower: 2008 Winner

The SKYDB Awards recognize high-rise buildings that unite architectural quality with practical performance, and the Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower in Tokyo was selected as the 2008 SKYDB Awards Winner.

The 204-meter educational tower brings three vocational schools together on a compact site in Nishi-Shinjuku. Each school occupies its own vertical zone, while shared lounges and open campus rooms connect students from different courses. The rounded envelope narrows at the base and crown, giving the building the protective form suggested by its name.

White diagonal bands wrap the blue-glass facade and express the idea of a cocoon without concealing the tower's scale. Moving circulation and communal rooms into the center reduces long institutional corridors and creates places for informal exchange. The award recognizes a new model for a vertical campus in which the building's outward image grows from its educational program.

Architect: Tange Associates