night: city with lights

As seen from Dentsu Tower.

in an elevator, descending

Photos from the Dentsu Tower by Jean Nouvel.

views from a flood wall

Along the flood wall separating the Arakawa (a large river in Tokyo) from the city a series of low views can be obtained. Here I focus on looking towards the citys dense low rise developments. The height of the view from more or less the 4th story level makes for an interesting angle of the city.

Nihon Minka-en

The space between inside and outside.

 A few pictures from Nihon Minka-en (Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum).

along the arakawa - shuto expressway

Trucks meeting in the air. Along the Arakawa, a river flowing through the north and east of Tokyo23, the C2 outer loop of the Shuto Expressway is realized high above ground level.

A number of different system of infrastructure follows the river. Lets explore some in this post.

water 3 - flood wall

Urban window.

A view through an urban window shows visual reality of the urban situation. On the other side you could perhaps find a garden.

water 2.1: pumping station

One the powered pumps. Part 2.1 of water.

View from control room.

water 2: underground

Monumental scale of infrastructure. Perhaps one of the best pictures of this blog.

The parts of the greater Tokyo area located on the Kanto plain are cut through by a series of rivers. Due to the proximity of the mountains, large amounts of rains when it a typhoon strikes, and quite short rivers they are very prone to flooding. To help relieve the problems with flooding there is infrastructure for moving large quantities of water between rivers, like in the center of the city in the previous post. This chamber has been featured is series of media, like commercials. To read more see here.
The pump station is powered by a series of jet turbines to provide the extreme amount of power necessary.

water 1: Kanda River Underground Regulating Resovoir Under the Loop Road 7

Garbage accumulating in flood reservoir.
 Along Kandagawa, one of the rivers I used to run along, one can observe one of the visible signs of an hidden kind of infrastructure dealing with one the naturals disasters the Tokyo area has to deal with, flooding.

views (blur)

The chaotic nature of the suburban landscape.

flood wall garden

A street side collection of plants.

maximum (Escher)

Another example of odd an Tokyo building complying with legal requirements proposed by the zoning system. The visual effect is slightly Escher like.

Soshigaya-Okura at night.

 Light/dark in alley leading to the famously long shotengai.

train, rain, blur (long post)

 Moving through the city in different ways change how you perceive it. From the raised tracks of Odakyu main line we take look at a part of Setagaya.

bigger buildings - out of scale

establishing a new context.

the negative effect of scale shift

This is not the usual small scale big scale Tokyo conflict. This makes me more sad.

along a ring road

A church.

a garden

hamarikyu. a garden in the harbor. 

a crossing

 Inokashira-dori

tourism

the fishmarket in tsukiji.

from 1st

 a favorite

a river

 a train for the mountains

and a canal

a showroom disguised a house

with an office on the first floor.

a small axis

As usual in Tokyo everything exists at many different scales. In the rain in the backstreets of a suburb slightly famous for various reasons a chapel or church like building make it own small but grand axis.

metal screen

at night, with light.

transformer

ban, shigeru. the performative aspects of transformation in a building. the parking entrance

Playground

A playful collection of objects, patterns, materials and shapes. With meaning.

urban sports

 A cage for practicing golf.

and of the roof something else

inspirational modernism

Concrete. Setagaya-ku. ward office. another favorite.

a walk between two islands

 a simple discussion of empty public space and architectural renderings in Stockholm makes me wonder about how this was rendered, what activities were playing out here, what scenarios were happening to make wide promenade seems not only a good idea but necessary. perhaps a world exhibition that never was. it is rainy day. it is a little bit cold.

tamagawa

a development, population density projected onto the area surrounding a railway station on the other side of the tamagawa and the greens/flooding areas surrounding it. this is one end of tokyo.

a street at night

later, I used run here

日本の家

Interesting reading. Wish I had read earlier.
How to Make a Japanese House

wall, green

ban, shigeru. house of a dentist

a window

a shinohara window. bad white balance on camera.

from the past

 Street photos. I have collected quite many photos in Tokyo. I will be posting them kind of randomly from now on.