The Future Starts Here: Visiting Roland’s Radical New Headquarters

Roland unveiled its new global headquarters and we were there to see it. The architecture is impressive but what really has us excited is the inherent potential for new technology.

It might seem wild but until now, Roland has never had a proper headquarters. The global company has had to make do with a series of offices spread out across the city of Hamamatsu, Japan. This piecemeal approach saw the R&D departments for Roland and subsidiary BOSS in separate buildings, with another for general administration. In 2023, Roland announced that it was going to address this corporate Balkanization and finally unite everyone under a single roof.

In December of last year, Roland debuted its new headquarters. Called Roland Inspiration Hub, it’s a forward-thinking endeavor both architecturally and conceptually, with a number of suitably inspiring touches that hint at what the future has in store. 

Roland didn’t start its life in Hamamatsu. Founder Ikutaro Kakehashi set up the company in Osaka in 1972 after departing his previous outfit, Ace Tone. Although Roland would remain in Japan’s second city for another three decades, in 1973 Kakehashi took the step of establishing a dedicated Roland factory in Hamamatsu. 

A central Japanese city with a long history of manufacturing, Hamamatsu became the musical instrument center of Japan after Torakusu Yamaha, the founder of the company that bears his name, started making reed organs in the city in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1897. With Kawai and Suzuki also there, among other, smaller companies, it made sense for Roland to also manufacture its products in Hamamatsu.

Roland did finally make the move to Hamamatsu in 2005, but had its various departments spread out across different locations throughout the outskirts of the city, most famously with the R&D Center and its Roland Museum overlooking Lake Hamana. It was a step in the right direction, but it still meant that departments had to remain separated, slowing down communication and the exchange of ideas. Not ideal.

[quote align=right text="What better way to unite the various departments under one roof than by symbolically and literally creating a new roof across multiple buildings?"]

What better way to unite the various departments under one roof than by symbolically and literally creating a new roof across multiple buildings? The new structure housing the three-story Roland Inspiration Hub does just that, combining two existing buildings (actually the former location of Roland DG, formerly Amdek and now a completely unrelated endeavor) into a single new one.

In a unique twist, the outside space previously situated between the two old structures now forms a central atrium called the Roland Arena. This was the location for the unveiling event on December 10, which featured a presentation about the creation of the building as well as a musical performance showing off some of Roland’s latest instruments. The company envisions using the Arena as a gathering space for special occasions, but also in a day-to-day capacity, with an instrument station on permanent display for employees to use when needed.

Surrounding the Arena on each floor is the so-called Roland Circuit, a wall-less corridor that provides access to the surrounding office and R&D areas for both Roland and BOSS, all of which are equally without walls, each floor a massive open-plan space that—the company and architects hope—will encourage collaboration and communication.  

After the opening event, we took a tour around the interior of the building. Given that Roland is best known for its classic synthesizers, you might expect to see references to its long and storied history around the premises. And you’d be right. The conference rooms are all named after famous Roland synths, including the Jupiter-8 and TB-303, while the soundproof rooms arranged along the side wall of the R&D area are decorated with graphic representations of synthesizer waves—including the famous supersaw from the JP-8000.

Apparently, the doors originally were going to have the names of the waves printed as well, but the senior engineers thought it would be better for the new hires if they left these off. Good luck to the newbie engineer waiting in the wrong room after misidentifying a square wave!

Roland also includes BOSS, and the effects subsidiary gets some love in the parking lot, with the direction arrows painted on the ground using the same design as the ones on the pedals, indicating signal flow. 

While the little Roland touches here and there were certainly cool, it was the Roland Experience Gallery that really impressed. If the new headquarters were a museum, the Roland Experience Gallery would be the gift shop—although it’s not a store, nor is it open to the public. It is, however, a gallery showing off the company’s latest technologies, including prototypes meant to explore where Roland may go five or 10 years down the line.

For example, on display was the Project LYDIA pedal, the result of a collaboration between Roland’s Future Design Lab R&D team and machine learning plugin company Neutone. What looks like a boutique pedal is actually an AI-infused effects box. Plugged into a T-8 Beat Machine, it turned the drums into all sorts of wild and unexpected sounds, including human voice. 

The Gallery also acts as an interactive sound environment with its original, AI-powered audio installation. Playing over the speakers is an original ambient composition by Japanese musician Sakura Tsuruta, which is being triggered from an Ableton Live session. This is then altered by AI supplied by Qosmo, which is part of the same umbrella group as Neutone. The AI uses a number of variables to alter the music in real time, including infrared sensors set up around the space that react to the body heat from visitors, Hamamatsu weather data, and MIDI information played on a Roland Mood Pan.

[quote align=right text="More than 50 years on from its founding, Roland is still designing the future. Now it can do it under a single roof"] 

Having visited Roland in Hamamatsu before, we always looked forward to seeing the private museum inside the R&D Center. With the engineers now all moving to the new building, we asked what was going to happen to the old location and museum.

It appears that the Roland Museum and its accompanying theater, recording studio, and anechoic chamber will remain where they are—at least for now. This makes sense, as the new building didn’t appear to have a specialized recording studio, something necessary when making high-quality recordings of acoustic instruments for sample packs and sound sets for instruments like the Fantom series.

It would be great if the museum could be opened to the public like Yamaha’s Innovation Road elsewhere in Hamamatsu.

The slogan “We design the future” has long been part of Roland’s branding. While this has been visible in its products, from the TR-808, TR-909 and TB-303, among many others, the places where this future designing happened never felt particularly futuristic. Until now. With the Roland Inspiration Hub, the company has created a place for all of its different departments to come together and collaborate on the next generations of Roland tech. What we saw in the Roland Experience Gallery on the event day was just a glimpse of what could eventually be released under the Roland and BOSS brands.

At the end of the day, however, this is just a building. While it’s tempting to throw up all kinds of hyperbole when describing it, we still need to keep in mind that it will house very unsexy (but necessary) corporate departments like accounting and human resources. But it will also allow the R&D departments of Roland and BOSS to work closely together in a way that they never have before, possibly resulting in more collaborative products like the BOSS PX-1 and its plugout FX algorithms.

More than 50 years on from its founding, Roland is still designing the future. Now it can do it under a single roof.

The Roland Inspiration Hub will officially open for business on March 2, 2026.