Even if you’re sharing the same floor with another business, traditionally in Japan, to preserve a sense of privacy, office boundaries are properly demarked with booths and partitions. But lately, according to Nikkei Trendy, some new real estate ventures are offering office spaces that blur or even demolish these lines, allowing businesses to interact in potentially beneficial ways.

Take Co-lab, for instance, a company that owns trendy office space in several locations across Tokyo. They offer open-plan office space to those in creative industries, with the aim of getting residents to collaborate together. In order to rent office space, companies must first submit creative work to be vetted by the people at Co-lab before being allowed into the fold. Rather than being secretive about what they’re working on, creative types have the opportunity to share ideas and even collaborate together on projects.

This model resembles the way entrepreneurs are sharing office space and ideas at startup incubators. But open plans are not the only way to encourage connections between businesses located in the same building. Real Gate real-estate agency manages five office blocks across Tokyo, with a sixth to be opened in Aoyama in March, and organizes networking events at all of them to bring tenants together. In addition some buildings also house communal spaces such as bars, gyms and spas, where people can gather to socialize and exchange ideas.