Hiroki Tominaga uses 130 shipping pallets to design a fresh office space for $2300

Office renovations no longer have to cost thousands of dollars. Japan's Hiroki Tominaga Atelier was approached by a video production company to design a temporary office space at the base of a nondescript building in Tokyo.

The client rents the space for an exorbitant fee, so the brief called for a flexible renovation that accommodates a range of uses and which is easily undone and moved elsewhere when the lease ends. The ultimate solution? Shipping pallets.

Hiroki Tominaga Atelier used 130 pallets of varying quality for every aspect of the renovation, Dezeen reports. The cheaper boards were used for tiered ceilings while the medium-priced pieces were used to cover the walls or stacked and topped with glass for use as expansive boardroom tables in the middle of the room. More expensive pallets were used to create a fresh new floor.

Because the rent is so high, the client often has to rent their 50 square-meter space out to others, so the designers created a slatted hatch for the exterior that can be open or closed depending on what is happening inside. If the space is open for business, the hatch will be open, but if there’s a private party, it can be closed to street traffic. An outsider looking in might think this contemporary renovation cost thousands of dollars, but because the designer didn’t have to hire a carpenter, and because the materials were so inexpensive, the total cost came to under $2,300. And the client can pack it up and take it with them if they move.