Akishima-ensis (Education and Welfare Center)

The building incorporates natural light with a whale library, an exchange plaza, and facilities for the handicapped (face-to-face reading room and recording room). It was built on the grounds of a closed elementary school. The light that spreads on the expanded metal mesh surface of the second floor ceiling makes you feel as if you are looking up at the surface of the sea from underwater. In the entrance atrium, a full-size fossil replica of an axolotlid whale is on display, reminding visitors that the area around Akishima City was once an ocean approximately 2 million years ago. The double-glazed glass surface of the hall surrounding the whale was lit by the light, and the angle of the whale was slightly changed to create a holographic effect.