Ukiyoe print of a village at the base of a mountain with a Shinto Shrine in the distance.
Mont st michel in France located in the center of the island.Week 11 was the last lecture of this subject Advanced Landscape Technology.
It was finished with the :Technology, Sustainability and Scale: a sysnthesis" by Dr. Sidh.
Sustainability, it is still vague and can be just trendy work to attract people for consumption.
One thing we have to understand is that sustainability can define totally different thing, depending on cultural background that you are dealing with. Here I would like to look at Tokyo, and where I spent many of my life and some other Asian cities that I visited. I will investigate the Tokyo Urbanism where tradition and technology have met.
Sustainability, it is still vague and can be just trendy work to attract people for consumption.
One thing we have to understand is that sustainability can define totally different thing, depending on cultural background that you are dealing with. Here I would like to look at Tokyo, and where I spent many of my life and some other Asian cities that I visited. I will investigate the Tokyo Urbanism where tradition and technology have met.
Japanese Architect, Maki explained concept Oku as a fundamental Japanese notion of space, comparing the two picture above. There is no completely analogousword term in English. Brdefon (2005) explained that Oku connotes a mysterious depth or symbolic, unattainable center; it refers less to ameasurable distance than to a metaphysical dimension, and can apply on many scales, from city to shrine. To describe the concept, Maki’s 1979 book Miekakure Suru Toshi referred to the paradigmatic Japanese village located along a river valley at the base of a forested mountain. "For the villagers, the mountain is imbued with a spiritual life, but it is not a place or a spirit that can be known. The mountain is a mysterious part of the collective unconscious, evoking a mystery that is neither sinister nor benign. It only lurks, and its presence constantly reminds the villagers that something unknowable lies beyond."( Bredon. 2005)
I think this is not only in Japan, and similar ideas are found in many other Asian countries. However his observation of the different spatial concepts shown in the two photo, "oku and center" reveal the fundamental differences the way thing work and people think, depending on the culture.
Many of the contemporary issues seem occur when this differences encounter with the modernity or globalisation, which homogenizes them. Things that used to work within a certain system start being destroyed, when something are imported from different place. Individual comes to be functional when it be group. For example, traditional Japanese house is wooden with ceramic roof, though the its heavy weight is seemingly not structurally stable in Japan that has many natural disasters especially earthquake. However, it has a function to avoid fire by falling down on top of everything. The Great Hanshin earthquake that I also experienced killed so many people are mostly by fire. It did not stop for long time and burnt everything. The modern concrete building technology that denied the traditional house are cause larger disaster. There also are many people, especially old are suffered because of the lonliness and enclosed life after the earthquake. The effect of disaster can be largely mitigated the unity of community. One may be saved through daily conversation with neighbor, and other can be actually saved due to neighbor's physical help during the earthquake. In the modern way of living, interaction with the neighbors are geting less and less which is huge vulnerability in urban Tokyo.
The issues of sustainability often are same thing. Things that used to worked well within entire system, started not to function very well, or not function with the surrounding elements. It is not the things that you can only measure with number. Brendon explained that sustainability that was automatically included in Maki's work when he designed with cultural elements.
Recent articles have applauded the sustainability of Fumihiko Maki’s architecture due primarily to his use of screens....Ultimately, however, such arguments represent a misreading of intent. In this age of “green-washing,” architects often rationalize screens or sunshades as evidence of their buildings’ sustainability. But Maki’s buildings could rarely be considered sustainable by such measures as energy consumption, carbon emissions, or waste reduction. Instead, Maki’s buildings embody a different kind of sustainability—one that lies not in their technical performance, but in the conceptual overlays that imbue them with meaning. While Maki’s screens do block the sun, and consequently reduce the need for air conditioning, he does not conceive them as purely energy-saving devices. Rather, they derive from concepts that embody cultural, religious, social, spatial, material, artistic, technological, economic and humanistic ideas.
Sustainability has to be evaluated in much larger sense.
In tokyo, there are a lot of hope if you look at the today's young people tastes.
Young people seem to appreciate more old japanese style, rather than imported wetern style which used to dominate most of what is good in our mind. Many young people establish interesting alternative neighborhood, which they transform what is there into modern style, rather than buying new imported stuff.
The value of Japaneseness increases in young people.
This vernacular style building in the hippest neighbrohood of Tokyo, Daikanyama is used by the Japanese designer.
Shimokitazawa is also interesting neighbrhood where has a strong character of japanese culture. "Shimokitazawa, well-known for being a vibrant area, home to many bars, restaurants, and speciality stores, just minutes away from major hubs such as Shibuya and Shinjuku, might well be partly destroyed by a new plan of the government for large road right through the neighborhood. The new plan would result in transforming a low-rise, local scale, community orientated neighborhood into a commercial center similar to so many others in Tokyo"( Urban typhoon)
Typical street in Shimokitazawa that is vibrant with shops and many street activitiesThe government reasons of its demolition for certain function and efficiency. However is wide road really efficient??? We had a workshop called "URABAN TYPHOON" to express current positive aspect of Simokitazawa to stop its development. The unit I organized , overhead shimokitazawa, focused on the layer of people that I think another significant element to describe uniqueness of Tokyo.
There are many different group of people in Tokyo and they are called something tribe. The fascion, magazine you read, the place you hang out or live often represent what tribe are belonging to. Those tribe can be different among in young people and might be only older group. We examined this different layer who has different opinion and try to make them commnunicate each other. We investigate hidden relationship among those groups which seemingly does not share anything.
Series of images revealing hidden relationship among different layers of people in Shimokitazawa are presented as a form of street performance.
"The street act beautifully expressed the gravity of the situation to which the residents of Shimokitazawa are confronted. That is, the imminent destruction of their urban and cultural milieu by master planners drawing new lines on the map from their central Tokyo office without any consideration for the intrinsic complexity and sophistication of Shimokitazawa."
(retrieved from the report 2006 urban typhoon)
This workshop seek for the possible way to plan city in bottom up system as many Asian cities are. In fact, Many of the unorganised and chaotic city are more attractive in Tokyo than new developed area. (They are not unorganised actually but different ordered from the way it is talked in theory of urban design)
Ping mag looked at the streetscape of two different city shibuya and Marunouchi.
Shibuya where streetscape are created by advertisement.
Marunouchi. The new development business district where there is no advertisement.
Yes, street scape in many cities in Tokyo are created by Advertisement, and changes every week or even every day!
Landscape in train which totally change frequently.
I wrote the essay about Japanese contemporary socity in sociologal perspective. It refered to the cultural and even biological change of people in japan through changing experience in city in Tokyo. I looked at Tokyo as a extreme case where one experiences city in different way that are drived from advertisement, or economic strategy. what Disappearance of our way of "understanding through Body" that are most unique japanese culture are change us.
Coming back to the landscape architecture and technology,....
It is hard to conclude these huge topics. However my keyword was consistent with old technology/ old way. In other words what you are familiar with or used to it.
The technology can be only successfully applied into the specific site/ culture, when the technology has a form that is easily used by those people.
In other words, it needs to have a readable/ cultural code that come from cultural activity or custom. It may be expressed with the Nasseur's word "orderly frame". It is not only for landscape aesthetics but also can be applied to the new technology that is orderly frame with the recognizable framing.
What i mentioned here still need to be investgated much more to make it clearer and improve.
These 12 post of writing are just a beginning process. I will continue seeking for the way of cultural framing and design landscape which can look innovative but easily immersed into the site and community.
to be continued.....
