In search of a design that would lend the company a more distinct identity, a Japanese wood-processing concern held an architectural competition for the new administration building of its branch works in the prefecture of Nagoya. The brief required an extensive, versatile and innovative use of the company’s own products – timber goods for housing construction – in the design of the new complex. The application of relatively slender cross-sections specially developed for this purpose was a further constraint. In the course of various trials conducted with different structural systems, it proved possible to exploit these restrictive conditions to create a form of construction of distinctive character. Adhering to the requirements of the spatial brief, the prize-winning design is divided into three sections, each of which reveals an individual treatment of the specified materials.