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.

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.

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.

along a ring road

A church.

a crossing

 Inokashira-dori

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.

blocking chair

Inspired by a-small-lab's work with Tokyo Design Space I think that this chair is worthy of attention. Even tough this fix has an official air. Also I would like to point out that thanks to this sharing of viewpoints, our view of the city expands as we see more and more in every situation. This chair works as a temporary road block transforming shared space, which it must be noted is clearly dominated by walking people most of the time, into a pedestrian zone during the peak hours of shopping in Shimokitazawa. This kind of closure is usual on both small streets like this example in the suburban Kyodo (a with more normal looking sign) and in major shopping areas like Shinjuku, Akihabara or Ginza on weekends.

Material: Paper, tape, marker and plastic chair.
Location: Shimokitazawa, Setagaya, Tokyo.

4 ways to use parking space

This type of almost identical buildings arise on larger (for small values of large) plot developed into a series of independent houses. 4 different uses of the space provided.

along Tamagawa Josui

Along with the Chuo-line meetup group I walked along parts of the Tamagawa Josui from Mitaka station and towards the city. Among other things we saw an urban farm and a road development project in progress. Here are a few more pictures.
For fantastic and convenient map of the the Tamagawa Josui look here. The dimensions are 300x20cm.

a road development

A park, a wall and plastic covered ground to stop vegetation from growing. The Tamagawa Josui (more about it here and here) is a 43 km waterway built to supply Edo (now Tokyo) with water, work started in 1653. Along a section of the Tamagawa Josui in Suginami-ku a road is being built, as all road developments in urban areas, things are in the way of the planned road. A comment in Japanese about the development here and a blog about here.

The situation regarding the execution of theese planned road that often stretch far back in history is more complicated than I've previously realised.  

Plans for new roads infrastructure approved in the 1960s have proven virtually impossible to revise, ...

There are literally thousands of such plan, particularly for City Planning Roads (Toshi keikau doro) projects for multilane arterial roads through existing urban areas. ... Although it might seem a simple matter for the central government to cancel a plan that is no longer needed or wanted (...) in fact it is not so easy to cancel such plans. ... - [As the plan] put some legal restrictions on allowable building activity, the government is concerned that cancellations of plans that were approved in the 1960s and 1970s might prompt massive compensation claims from affected landowners. No city planning roads have yet been cancelled.    

André Sorensen and Carolin Funck in Living Cities in Japan, Conclusions: a diversity of machizukuri processes and outcomes. 

The road project I've previously written about change a bit in the light of the above quote. The fantastic pocket of time here in special, but also here and here.

The projected road development along the Tamagawa Josui is well underway but the physical reality during the years long implementation of the plan is just strange and sad.

A section of the plan.

an urban farm

An Urban Farm along the Tamagawa Josui. Here you buy your locally produced vegetables, just leave some coins corresponding to amount you take with you. There are many small patches inside the urban areas of Tokyo still working as farms. This is the advantage of urban development happening in small chunks.
Today these farms are seen as resource by the city.

meiyaku dori

A bicycle lane in Setagaya-ku. An update from an earlier post today about bicycle lanes. Note the cigarette butts in the curb. Curbs are were garbage ends up. 

re: bicycle lanes

A blue bicycle lane heading toward Shinjuku Central Park. Photo in Shibuya-ku.

In recent post from Tokyo By Bike about bicycle lanes Bicycke lanes. Don't bring them to Japan. Byron Kidd lays out his argument against them. 

I'm comfortable cycling on the road, in traffic, riding at speed.  Others are more comfortable cycling at a more refined pace on the sidewalks.  That’s great, I appreciate the fact that as cyclists we're allowed to choose between the two.

The few bicycle lanes of this kind that exist are horrible. Proper bicycle lanes along some of the major roads would perhaps be good but this, no.