Tokyo voids: Extending Tokyo's public realm through it's forgotten voids

Abstract

Despite global population growth, Japan's population is experiencing a decrease in population, contractions in part due to low birth rates, aging majority, and high life expectancy. As such, 10% of homes in Japan lay abandoned, urban voids largely ignored, juxtaposed to the dense vertical presence of the megacity. Traditional urban development prioritizes development of urban spaces into profitable assets. Factoring Tokyo's increasing voids, new strategy must be developed, one that reevaluates the network of these spaces and realigns the values of urban development, defining the place in which such interventions mold the urban fabric. The strategies in which this thesis aims to leverage the emergence of Tokyo's voids begin by creating a set of conditions which categorize the Tokyo's complex urban landscape, planting ephemeral seeds weaving together through urban actuators throughout the city. Through this interweaving, relationships between the voids and the city being to converse, creating a new network of alternate pathways, re stitching the fading sense of place into the forgotten spaces. If successful, the strategies developed for contemporary Tokyo can serve as a foundation for a likewise system ol strategies and interventions that can be applied to the changing urban fabrics of cities throughout the world.