In Jiyugaoka, a residential area is located at the top of the hill, and an elderly care facility and a school are located next to each other at the bottom. However, there is no interaction between these two facilities, and the elderly care facility is closed. Therefore, in order to allow children to enter the facility, a section of the building was manipulated and three plazas were created in plan. In this way, interaction between the elderly, school children, and local residents is created, and the elderly, who used to only receive care, are now actively involved.
Nippori / Station as Threshold
Nippori Station is where the Narita line transfers to the Yamanote line. It is the first station where foreign tourists arrive, a number that has increased recently. Many foreigners move to the transfer trains while dragging their suitcases. Yanaka Ginza is located to the west side of the station. It is a popular sightseeing spot where old-fashioned townscapes are surprisingly well-preserved as they escaped war damage and the large scale development in the city center. Nippori station holds 14 train tracks. It consisted of 2 bridge outsite of ticket gate that connects west-east side of the station, and 3 bridges that connects several platform inside the ticket gates. The bridge that connects the east and west side of the city located in the north is a famous spot called the “Train Museum”, crowded with people who come to watch many kinds of trains pass on the track. In the future, where the ticket gate will be touchless and gateless, there will be nothing to separate these two bridges from each other. Exploring the use of local potential for the tourism in future, what would bridge of Nippori station will look like? The two types of bridges are connected so that people can come and go in between and a luggage service is set up on the Keisei line side. This will create an opportunity for the foreign tourists to use their spare time enjoyably while waiting for flights at Narita airport, or for the of hotel check-in, by being able to walk in Yanaka Ginza. A middle floor between the platform and the bridge is installed to develop a train museum. For the local people this intervention will become the base of spreading the culture of Yanaka Ginza to foreign countries. In the flow of local people and foreign visitors passing by each other, the fusion space of two kinds of bridges will be the meeting point where cultures form distant foreign countries meet each other. This is symbolized by the roof structure that alternately straddles the two bridges.
Farmstay In The City
AGRICULTURE & ACCOMODATION
INTERNATIONAL CITY, NEIGHBOURHOOD AND PRIVATE SCALE OF USE.
In this project we tried to re-incorpsed agrar- ian past of jiyugaoka into a smaller scale, In order to maintain this strong identity related to activities that habited the area from the begin- ing first through fields and farming and later through an important greenhouse activity.
To make such activities work economicaly and materially it would have to be opened to a certain amount of public, serving the global scale with accomodations, and the neighbour- hood with facilities open to local living people through a membership with an association.
This project has been conducted during the workshop held in collaboration by Tsukamo- to Yoshiharu and Andrea Matin. After the last correction, the group wished to develop fur- ther after the professors critics.
Liner Community
The Ebisu site for some historical reasons became the current slender shape. Our group first look into such sites in Tokyo to find the community of the slender type of site in Tokyo.
Then we find that Ebisu is dominated by young generation, however, the area is one of the highest land price in Tokyo. So there’s a contradiction that Ebisu is mainly for young generation who cannot afford to live there.
Our design goal is to make an affordable residence office complex for young generation in the specific area of Ebisu. The design makes vertical common space from ground level (gallery) to the top (roof garden), connection and organizing all rooms in every level. The common space contents kitchens, refreshing rooms, meeting rooms, and activity rooms etc. The common space goes up in a spiral way so that people can get a whole view of both the road and the river. Rooms are situated at south facing the river and courtyard enclosed by surrounding buildings, at the same time, offices are facing north and connected to the corridor
LABORERS & YATAI PORTS
DAVID HARVEY ‘REBEL CITIES’
Marxist social geographer David Harvey, in his book “Rebel Cities,” mainly discussed the factors of cities, precariat, and democratic anti-capitalism. He noted that cities are at the center of capital accumulation and are dominated by large financial companies and devel- opers. On the other hand, it is the people who actually make up urban life, and cities can also be the stage for revolutionary politics. He emphasized the importance of resistance to their right of access to the city in order to reconfigure cities in a more fair and social way.
“The important and ever-expanding labor of making and sustaining urban life is increasingly done by inse- cure, often part-time and disorganized low-paid labor. The so-called “precariat” has displaced the traditional “proletariat:’ If there is to be any revolutionary move- ment in our times, at least in our part of the world (as opposed to industrializing China), the problematic and disorganized “precariat” must be reckoned with. How such disparate groups may become self-organized into a revolutionary force is the big political problem. And part of the task is to understand the origins and nature of their cries and demands.”
RIGHT TO THE CITY
Cities have developed in a manner convenient for capi- tal accumulation. As seen in “global cities” and “creative cities,” most developments present visions that are seem- ingly attractive and acceptable to the public. However, these visions are used as a strategy in the competition of development. The development of a city always includes “growth and prosperity,” which is the premise of capital- ism. Mainly financiers and developers who profit from development occupy the discussion table and push de- velopment along with the government. In such a devel- opment process that lacks transparency, citizens’ voices are rarely considered. And the resulting cities further exclude the socially vulnerable, as seen in gentrification. Are these cities for the capitalists, not for the people?
There is also the question of what is the essence of what excluded people demand for cities. Harvey states that the “right to the city” is not only the freedom to change the city more as one wishes, but also the freedom to re- make oneself. He argues that this is one of the most pre- cious and yet most neglected of our human rights.
“The question of what kind of city we want cannot be divorced from the question of what kind of people we want to be, what kinds of social relations we seek, what relations to nature we cherish, what style of life we desire, what aesthetic values we hold.”
PRECARIAT
In recent years, the “gig economy,” a way of working in which one-time work is ordered via the Internet, has been expanding. Especially food delivery workers, rep- resented by Uber Eats, have no employer and individ- uals can freely obtain work with a single smartphone, and the number of such workers has increased rapidly as demand expands.
However, they also face problems such as harsh working conditions, unstable low wages, and weak safety nets. They are located at the end of the flow of people, goods, and money in the seemingly smartly controlled networked so- ciety, and are subject to unfair labor exploitation.
YATAI-HUB
They can be said to be today’s precariat, living mainly in metropolitan areas, fragmented, disorganized and fluid, having a diverse range of goals and needs. And these characteristics may make it difficult for them to collec- tivize and have a voice in the city. What problems do they face now, what do they want for the city, and what kind of people do they want to change themselves into? Their excluded demands can be an important critique of the problems immanent in urban daily life. And if these workers, now a disparate group, collectively raise their voices, they could be a major force in the remod- eling of the city.
Yatai is a kind of mobile food stall in Japan, that sell Jap- anese traditional foods such as ramen, yakitori, dango, and etc. Yatai have became part of Japanese economic life since Edo Period (1603-1868) and became more popu- lar after World War II. Nowadays, after Tokyo Olympics 1964, some of Yatai disappear because of the Govern- ment Regulations related to the health hygiene issue.
ANALYSIS
Yatai’s hub is designed in the first floor to respond peo- ple’s behavior in the surroundings, because Ikebukuro is an area in the middle of Tokyo that has a lot of tourists. As an international area, this place can be a great place to introduce Japanese Traditional food to the tourists. Since there are a lot of restaurants near the site, it also a great place for the deliverer to take a rest while. The be- havior of people who walking, talking, resting near the site can be found near the area that become an advan- tage for the site to attract people to come to the space.
SUGGESTION
Yatai is designed in the outer perimeter of the site and also in the sidewalk to create a connection between in- door and outdoor area. This method can attract more visitor to come to the hub.