Futurescape Tokyo is

a study in urban

fantasies and speculative

cartography. The project aims

to explore potential future

scenarios of the world's

largest megalopolis Tokyo,

which is expected to

shrink dramatically

during the next 86 years.

How would you describe the city of Tokyo today?

Tokyo is a city of many opportunities. However, if you want to make it here, you have to search for your own special niche and dive into it whole-heartedly. In that way, Tokyo really is what you make out of it. You have to be able to just let go of everything you had in the past and just dive into that place of opportunities. Then everything is possible.

What do you think is Tokyo's biggest challenge at the moment?

I think one of the biggest challenges is to enable people to create more stability in their lives. This is critical, I think. If people don't find stability, eventually they will turn away.

People need a stable life situation in order to find balance between work and family life. In terms of affordable housing, for example. A family friendly environment, more green spaces. I personally would prefer a city with less focus on shopping, but with a much greater sense of community. In general, I would just like more focus on us – as neighbors and fellow citizens – and not only on me. This is unfortunately the main problem that I see right now in Tokyo. The me-culture, the me-generation.

I think Tokyo should avoid to take over the American, western, model of globalization, with franchises and so on. Of course the globalization will affect the whole world to some extent, but in my opinion Tokyo should work more on what can be the Japanese version of that global culture.

Tell us about your interest in the vernacular and the alleyways of Tokyo!

When I first came to Tokyo, I was interested in documenting the stories that hid in the gap spaces, in-between the houses. The everyday life taking place in the seemingly empty and unremarkable spaces. But then, after a while, someone told me: "You know, there are not only gaps between the houses – there are also alleyways. Why don't you look into what the alleyways are all about?". Because a gap is just a gap, a void, whereas a back street might have more history. And that is when I started to do research on the roji, which is the Japanese term for alleyway.

Nowadays I write less on that specific urban form, and more on the revival of vernacular landscapes and items. I look for what used to be typical in the past. It is quite difficult to distinguish nowadays what was once typical for Tokyo, or Kyoto, or Nagoya, or Osaka, because there are more layers now. But there are elements. There are still inscriptions of the past in the city, even though the city in itself is transformed. In that way, my work resembles a little of archeology. I look for remnants in the city of the everydayness of the past. I am interested in the urban morphology of a place. The patterns and social structures that continue to shape the modern city.

What are you looking for, more specifically?

I ask myself – what is the character of this neighborhood? What realities have shaped this specific urban area? If you visit a dense area in the old Edo-part of Tokyo for example, you will find many layers. You might find the overlapping realities of the merchants or the warehouse people, or the servants of the palace – and then also of people like the samurai and the daimyo.

And somewhere in the city, these realities overlap. And then suddenly you realize that there are not only these big plots of the daimyo, but there is also a tea ceremony area, where geishas are still practicing! And then, on top of it all, you might see a big high rise building, which is there because a temple once sold a huge plot of land to develop... What is this? Is it globalization? Is it gentrification? Big question.

What lost qualities of urban life do you miss in Tokyo?

Many things have disappeared. The public bus for example... Children don't play outside anymore, they stay indoors... The “idobata-kaigi” or the “genkan talk”, when people used to stand in the hallway or entry of a house, just to chitchat and gossip about nothing in particular. All these things have disappeared! Some things remain though. People still play music in the streets. And there are also new ways of doing things, such as the park benches for old people. So, not everything is disappearing, but they might be remembered in a new version.

This kind of transformation is not only negative, as I see it. Change is unavoidable, sometimes you need to get rid of something in order to create something new. What is important is to take advantage of the qualities of a place. Don't just get rid of the old but try to use it in new ways. I like the old slogan "reduce, recycle, reuse".

What does the slogan "reduce, recycle, reuse" mean to you?

Tokyo should not only focus on quick money and tear down old beautiful houses just to build yet another shopping mall. Instead, use the existing qualities in innovative ways, to make it useable again. For example, a person I know opened a Bossa Nova Café in Ueno, together with some friends. They used to study art in the area and wanted to stay, so they rented an old house and started a business that they felt was close to their hearts. Bossa Nova has absolutely nothing to do with the traditional life style of Ueno, but it can still contribute to the neighborhood by keeping it alive. I think things like this are the new chance for many neglected areas.

Can you give us some examples of how people have regained forgotten spaces and reevaluated them in Tokyo?

There are quite a few examples of art and design actors who "recycle" old buildings and use them as art galleries or venues. The old abandoned bath houses of Tokyo is a good example. The most famous one is probably the Scai The Bathhouse in Yanaka, now redeveloped into an art gallery. Yanaka is a good example of a neglected area that has been able to reinvent itself.

Another example is an old school in Taito-ku, which had to close down because of lack of students. But instead of demolishing the building, they decided to transform the school into a designers village and a kind of incubator for young designers. This also had a spreading effect on revitalization in the area, with young people moving in and in their turn attracting new people, and so on.

Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, east of Sumida river, is another area where many galleries have opened in old factory buildings in recent years. And while these young artists might not feel part of the traditional life style in the area or attend the meetings of the neighborhood association – still, they somehow contribute and give life to the area. They reformulate what kind of place this is.

Some people we have met here in Tokyo talk about a shift in attitudes in the Japanese society after the catastrophes in 2011. Do you think people are more conscious than before about political issues and the surrounding environment?

I do see a shift in attitudes. When I talk to young people, like my students, many of them express a wish to escape the typical salarymen life style of Tokyo. They know what is expected from them, but they are not happy with it. So they search for a deeper meaning. However, I think this trend it started already before the catastrophes. If you move to Tokyo and wish to make a life here, you have to ask yourself – how can I do it and at the same time keep my happiness? How do I keep my work-and-life-balance?

You were talking about the "me-culture" earlier. Maybe this individualism is challenged by a simultaneous trend of sharing more, gathering more?

It is possible that this kind of doubts and ruminations come up to the surface in times of crisis or recession. Maybe people start to question themselves and their society more.

How has the view on architecture and urban planning in Japan been affected by the catastrophes?

Of course there are various rebuilding programs and urban planning initiatives. Many architects rushed to the disaster-stricken areas and started up projects. But, has the mindset changed? I don't know.

People from outside of Tokyo often blame tokyoites for being egocentric, for focusing only on the Olympics and on what Tokyo needs, and to little about the Tohoku area and the rest of the country. And there is some truth to it, I think. A lot of people never see other parts of the country, they don't care and they don't even want to know what is going on. And even if they are aware somehow that also Tokyo is very vulnerable geographically and that there is a constant risk for a tremendous earthquake to happen, it is not something people think and talk about a lot. Maybe this is what you have to do, shut it out and just not focus on it.

It you look at the history of Tokyo, you can see that this city has been destroyed many times and then rebuilt more or less on the same grid, but with new buildings. If – or when – Tokyo suffers from another big earthquake, what principles do you think should guide the rebuilding of the city?

I think that the understanding of rebuilding and preservation, should be less based on the material aspects and more on the skills. This is something people often forget about. The unspoken wisdom of a society.

During the Edo-era this was a much more sustainable town than it is today. For example, human waste was used as recycled energy. Why don't we incorporate this effective system again? Maybe it doesn't sound very attractive, but you you can grow all the vegetables you need in Tokyo, in the urban

area. But we don't. We import, and we have a huge amount of waste. Why not incorporate the wisdom of Edo, in the Tokyo of today?

Societies always go through cycles of forgetting, remembering, re-embracing... But I think that if you want to recreate a city that is more resilient, more sustainable and more livable, this is what you have to do. Rediscover the local wisdom, the local systems and rules, and incorporate them in the modern world. There is no need to reinvent everything.