016_multi-functional city

If you stay long enough in Tokyo, soon you will become a specialist in space manipulation. This one is an impressive example of mix-used concept. On top of parking lot is a golf driving range, very good combination, very clever, really great idea.

015_white in the dark

if someone is going blind, i'd recommend the person to move to tokyo. here in tokyo city, we can find the relief texture (braille) on walkways, public phones, cans of beer, subway ticket machines, etc., etc. furthermore, in the picture, they also have street crossing signal for the blinds, the white one. but i just wonder how the blind people know which the white one is. i guess it's more for us to press for them.

014_cartesian walker

in the midst of chaotic flow of tokyo's inhabitants, there is a group of people who walk in gridiron pattern. yes, the blinds. lucky for these people who rely on this cartesian geometry. in japan, they are provided with relief walkway almost everywhere.

013_the hidden system

by looking deep down under the chaotic surface of tokyo, some hidden orders or systems reveal. in bangkok we drive on the left but are forced to walk on the right. these two things are tally in tokyo. have you ever experienced difficulties in getting past some one walking from the other direction? strangely, the two always take the same side and struggle hard to get past each other. this won't happen if they have the same system. collision could be avoided if they both take, for example, their own left.

012_rapid chaos no.2

the high density of people at hachiko's crossing made me more curious so i went there again on a rainy day to see how it's going to be. it looked like colour dots moving in interesting patterns. the space occupied by one person was increased by the size of his or her own umbrella. how could they manage the traffic?

011_rapid chaos

this is hachiko's crossing at shibuya. the number of passers-by is more than thousand of thousand each day. if you want to experience tokyo's chaos, come to this crossing and try walking among the crowd. you will find people in every square-meter moving in every direction. have a nice time!

010_urban paradox

similar to most modernised cities, tokyo city today is a concrete forest compounded with non-traditional architectures. however, sometimes we can find some paradoxical urban scenes such as an old traditional house between modern hi-rise towers or even a crazy, hi-tech looking architecture like this sitting next to a small house.

009_another transparency no.2

take a look closer, this building is not a new design from toyo ito. it's a building under construction with wrapped skin for safety protection. this quality of neatness is the typical characteristic of construction site in tokyo.

008_another transparency

the japanese-architecture maniacs who love the use of transparent or translucent materials of ito-san or hasegawa-san must be surprised with this another kind of transparency found abundantly in tokyo, especially during economic bubble period.

007_blank center

the structure of today tokyo is composed of many centers along an important train loop yamanote line - shibuya and harajuku for teens, shinjuku for business, akihabara for electrical equipments, for example. strange but true, the center of the loop is blank. the center of tokyo is empty! the area used to be castle and palace for the tokugawa shoguns in edo period and still remain as the palace for the royal family nowadays.

006_gaps

in tokyo, each building stands individually with gaps in-between them. these gaps are varied in size. prof. hidetoshi ohno explains that these gaps prevent buildings from spreading structural collapse in earthquake and also accommodate electrical and air-conditioning systems.

005_tightness

the japanese law says if you want to buy a car, you need to show an evidence or to prove that you have space to park it. this matter is related to urban planning, in order to limit the number of cars. sometimes the space provided is not quite enough.

004_red alert

this is a bird-eye view of shinjuku at night. sometimes we can evaluate the density level of a metropolis from these scattering red spots. this nighttime urbanscape is merely found in cbd of big cities, not in small towns or countrysides.

003_asian manhattan

if manhattan's architectures are a paradigm for exploitation of congestion, according to koolhaas, the accumulation of tokyo's architecture is another kind of culture of congestion. modern city of tokyo is growing at incredible rate. spaces are needed more and more for a gigantic number of population.

002_signtecture

the nearer you move to city center, the higher density of sign number is. somewhere, right in the center, it seemd urban space is formed just by this stream of signs. especially in akihabara where it is famous for electrical appliances. in some shops, almost every square-inch is dedicated to price lists and commercial signs. should we call this 'signtecture'?

001_empire of signs

tokyo at first glance was like what roland barthes says in his book. it is the 'empire of signs'. it really is. public space fully flooded with signs is a typical scene of contemporary city nodes in japan. this is an exact image of japanese urban landscape