Staff at avant-garde practice Foreign Office Architects will travel between London and Japan for the next two years to oversee construction of Yokohama International Port terminal (shown as a CAD image above).

The five-year-old practice won an international competition to design the £130m ferry terminal, which must be finished by 2002, for the football World Cup to be hosted by Japan and Korea.

A 14-strong team has been working on the project from Foreign Office Architects’ Tokyo base, close to Yokohama. Partner Farshid Moussavi said: “The deadline is very tight. It’s really intense, but we are very pleased with developments.” Construction begins this month.

The firm has retained its London office, where staff are working on an entry for Toronto’s Downsview National Park competition. It is one of five shortlisted practices for the competition.

Moussavi said that many architects will commute between the two offices and she did not rule out maintaining the Tokyo base after the project: “Hopefully, we will have some more work. The Far East is strong at the moment.”