As the world turns towards more sustainable societies, new projects are leveraging the power of design to turn abandoned farmland, forests and buildings into places for people and things to forge new connections. Tools and historic technology considered of low-economic value are being reclassified as regional assets that are attractive and easy to use for everyone. Architect Tsukamoto Yoshiharu explores the world of designs that turn local resources into new lifestyles.
Farming villages and rural communities nurtured by a rich natural environment.
One group of people is leveraging these largely forgotten lifestyles as natural resources to realize the potential of human living.
Architect Tsukamoto Yoshiharu...
...works on the global stage as part of architectural firm Atelier Bow-wow.
He created a modern design for a local railway station, taking inspiration from the beloved original building from 130 years ago.
He proposed a community hub where locals and visitors could rub shoulders.
Today, we look at creating better accessibility to local resources, and the role of architecture in shaping communities.
- Hello, Tsukamoto-san.
- Hello.
"Creating better accessibility to local resources."
Can you talk about what this topic means to you?
Our world is full of all kinds of natural resources - plants, wildlife - resources that have formed with no human intervention.
When we discovered how to use them, we were able to turn them into accessible resources.
Today, however, in our capitalist economy, we find these resources from all over the world, buy them as cheaply as possible, turn them into products and sell them.
Unless you pay money, you can no longer access those resources.
As a result, I feel that accessibility has actually become worse for many people today.
I see.
Let's take a look at Tsukamoto-san's designs.
On the edge of the wilderness, Tsukamoto built this.
It's an office for those who have lives both in the city and in this rural farming village.
The space is lit by soft sunlight reflected through the windows.
The ground floor is a place to rest from farmwork.
Upstairs is a space for remote work.
This building provides a way for people who commute from the city, or who have moved out here, to maintain their relationship with the city.
It offers a new way to work and live.
It also links the local community to the rest of society - something that visitors can experience for themselves when they come out here.
The office is in Kamanuma-kita, 90 minutes' drive from central Tokyo and home to 25 families who lead traditional lifestyles.
The local symbol is the community's rice terraces that use only rainwater.
Over a millennium, the sloping ground created this natural resource.
But as residents grew older, it became harder to maintain the terraces.
They needed help from city residents.
This landscape was originally designed to grow rice.
It's the result of people spending years working with nature to find the best way forward for both sides.
It has enormous cultural worth and I think that staying in this office helps people see that.
Tsukamoto has been visiting the area every weekend since 2016, learning about the local culture alongside the college students he teaches.
One of his best teachers is Hayashi Yoshiki who moved here 23 years ago.
He fell in love with the local lifestyle and is determined to pass on its culture to the next generation.
This tool is unique to this area.
Both the top and edge are curved.
We rely on rainwater so we build
thick walls to trap the water.
This is the perfect tool to do that.
A design without a designer.
The terraces and tools were
shaped by the lives of residents.
They don't belong to any one person, but to everyone.
Continuing to use them and giving them new life is really the only way we can maintain this idea of common property.
Hayashi and Tsukamoto wanted to use technology and local expertise to revitalize this fading idea of communal property.
They teamed up with new residents to build a local hub in 2019.
They pooled their money to buy the land and buildings of a ruined house.
Tsukamoto's students joined the group to help with renovations.
It's now a guest house with a community kitchen.
The internal earthen walls were made from soil dug from the rice terraces and fermented straw.
The foundations were built using local bamboo.
The external walls use cedar bark, reminiscent of a traditional teahouse.
This came from trees cut down when thinning local groves.
A truly shared community space built by sharing skills.
Everyone can use this space, and they'll all interact with it in unique ways.
That instantly forges a strong sense of intimacy.
It's a new community grouping, and a new way to use local resources.
Providing this kind of space should revitalize the area.
A small community providing a new perspective on society at large.
What an amazing office space.
I can see how it could make a dual lifestyle between the city and the countryside much more feasible.
Even just visiting once or twice a week would change your life completely.
I really hadn't thought something like this would be possible.
There's a great big wooden deck attached to it.
Sometimes you see city visitors who came up to plant rice doing yoga.
One day they're planting, the next, doing morning yoga.
Amazing!
It's made exchange with the locals easier.
I enjoyed the communal aspect of the project.
This idea of residents from the local area, people who had moved there, and visitors all coming together to work on something.
I get the feeling that this was always part of your goal, am I right?
These rural communities are really wonderful spaces.
They're perfectly designed.
Generations of people have shaped wonderful, welcoming environments.
Total amateurs like myself can visit, and achieve so much after only a little study.
Hayashi-san has been there for 23 years and studied with lifelong residents.
But the true teacher is the environment itself.
I call Hayashi-san the senior apprentice.
You're both still learning!
Yes, he's not the teacher.
The environment is.
Yes, including things like that old house.
Looking at its walls showed us how to build new ones.
It provides its own architectural plan.
Yes, that's it.
We can look at the house and see what it should look like, and how to rebuild it.
It guides us through the process, and develops our skills.
It shapes us as we shape it.
The skills to handle historic resources.
Yes.
I love seeing complete newcomers, or people who have only a tenuous connection to rice paddies, all standing in a line and planting rice, row by row.
"Almost done!"
It's wonderful.
We're all drawing lines of rice together.
Like an artist drawing a picture with a pencil or brush.
Collaborating on an artwork.
Exactly!
We're all just following the design laid out by the topography of the rice terraces.
The land has shaped these places for us.
There wasn't someone who came along and decided what to do to it.
People looked at what was there, observed how it worked, and then designed something in harmony with the land.
There's a real sense of love for the landscape.
I'm sure.
So who created all this communal property?
Well, it's people who are long gone.
So many generations were part of shaping these terraces, these tools, and this lifestyle.
Starting from nothing, it must have been so difficult.
It inspires me to ensure all that hard work gets handed down to the next generation.
I can imagine.
I think it's interesting because at first glance, cities feel very connected.
You can go out and buy whatever you want, move around easily and so on.
But there are no real roots in the city.
Cities aren't really connected in any way to the past or to the land.
A good illustration of who we've become is this floor, for example.
It never occurs to us to ask where it came from, or who made it.
Right, exactly.
We just put our faith in it holding up, without considering it any further.
And that's partly because we've built a society that provides us with reliable products.
But on the other hand, I have no idea what I'm standing on.
That's a perspective worth examining.
Definitely!
Yet I don't know if it's possible to do that.
We've been so changed by the pursuit of efficiency and productivity above all else.
Architecture, cities, and society itself have all been shaped around human resources.
They've been designed to ensure we spend most of our time working.
That's true.
In return, we can buy anything we want for money.
- Right.
- Absolutely.
But we can't repair things or build homes.
We don't do anything. We just receive services.
That's become modern life.
I would like to push back against that state of affairs.
I don't want to bundle all of us together under the idea that we're just... "human resources."
Yes.
I'd much rather we became resourceful humans.
Resourceful humans, interesting.
It seems to me as though these projects you're working on are sort of...
small-scale examples of a new design for society.
A circular society that anyone can take part in.
It's a new perspective.
It would be wonderful if we could shape our future architecture, cities, and society around the idea of resourceful humans.
They should inspire us to think about what we can do, and to fulfill our potential.
I'd love to see architecture serve that kind of interest, to help people achieve more for themselves.
That would be incredible.
Next, Tsukamoto-san's design for combining farming and social care.
Katori lies 90 minutes' drive from central Tokyo.
It's a rural landscape of rice paddies and cedar forests.
Here, Tsukamoto designed this building - an open structure that seems to hold out welcoming arms.
It's a restaurant that serves dishes made with local pork.
On the weekends, it's crowded with visitors from the Tokyo area.
The design reflects the hopes of Iida Daisuke, a local social worker.
We've worked with
disabled folks for over 10 years.
Many are only paid about
$100 for a month's work.
I wanted to create jobs that
paid at least $1,000 a month.
Iida's uncle had run a pig farm nearby for over 40 years.
Iida had the idea to build a place for people who have difficulties finding employment for various reasons, where they could work processing and cooking the farm's produce.
Tsukamoto took the commission and designed large windows to serve as the building's symbol.
There are no barriers, and every aspect is open to visitors.
The large windows serve to connect the inside and the outside.
This connection has brought about changes in the workplace.
We get lots of visitors
on the weekends.
It gets busy
but it's very satisfying.
Because I get to work with Otani-san.
It's great to see customers
go home smiling.
The project has become an accepted part of the local landscape.
Iida next turned to the cedar forest on the nearby mountain.
Planted for lumber after World War Two, the forest had since fallen into neglect.
I can create jobs
by caring for the forest.
The money goes back into the
community. It's a great model.
Caring for the land creates new jobs.
The forest thinnings are processed for firewood and sold.
As part of the project, Tsukamoto designed these buildings.
The wide-open interior allows for plenty of air-flow.
The building's supports are made from logs of cedar from the mountain.
The roof frame is also made from forest materials.
The boiler uses firewood to provide hot water and heating.
Both buildings reach beyond their physical boundaries to offer cyclical design to the region.
Lots of people find it hard
to work or to socialize.
I want them to feel happy
they live in this area.
To know they can be part
of a larger society.
That's the kind of local
community I want to build.
Wonderful.
That was really lovely.
It really struck me how important it is to have that sense of connection to society, to have purpose in your work.
It's so important to feel connected to other people.
In the end, a society anyone can be part of is a healthy society.
Healthy physically, mentally, and economically.
Instead of pondering the meaning of society and whether or not we have the right to be a part of it, we should all take a step back and recognize that we're already part of one.
Right now, all of us are living among all of these other people - that's society.
I think the projects that Iida-san is taking on are all about building on exactly that kind of society.
He's creating workplaces for people of all kinds, and which pay fair wages.
It's a circular system.
Exactly.
Hearing about a project like this, your mind jumps to the feasibility of having to work through a disability to produce firewood.
But it's absolutely doable - the only limitation is in our own minds.
I found that really eye-opening.
Indeed - that's where the barriers lie.
We're all surrounded by these invisible obstacles.
Very true.
The fact that we feel we can't access resources that are right beside us is an obstacle that's been created by market forces.
Yes.
Instead of thinning the forest and using these resources, we import because it's cheaper.
That's true.
There are barriers everywhere.
As an architect, it's very easy to limit your idea of accessibility to things like managing stairs and different levels.
But when I first discussed this project with Iida-san, he brought over a wood-splitting machine.
He said, if we use this, then disabled workers can chop wood just fine.
"This is what accessibility looks like."
It was a revelation for me.
Makes sense.
Social barriers aren't just about adding elevators or ramps, or wheelchair slopes.
There's a lot more going on.
When we find a barrier, we need to point it out and think about it as a community.
Then we can open up a hole, lower an entrance, melt an obstacle so everyone can access the resource on the other side.
That's how everyone gets to participate in society.
Right.
And I think architecture in general has to reexamine all those assumptions.
It's something that could really broaden the work of architects.
Sure.
But how can we make urban resources accessible?
Matsudo in Chiba Prefecture is home to many Tokyo commuters.
The city is covered in graffiti art and murals.
Even this public toilet is a work of art.
This ordinary park has been transformed into a space for physical expression.
In Matsudo, art is a part of everyday life.
The base for these projects is PARADISE AIR.
A former hotel, it's been turned into free temporary accommodation for artists.
Over 300 groups of artists have stayed in Matsudo to produce work.
The area first flourished as a rest stop during the 18th century, and it's said that locals retain the same welcoming spirit towards outsiders.
Director Mori Junpei saw potential in Matsudo and its history.
Locals have a sense of ownership.
Turn it into a public space,
do whatever you want.
It feels a lot freer than
other neighborhoods.
Others were drawn to the area's atmosphere.
The group began work in 2013.
They place great weight on the relationship between artists and Matsudo residents.
It's not about creating an end product.
Just enjoy being in Matsudo.
They see it with new eyes
and totally new perspectives.
We ask them do something
they can only do in Matsudo.
A new piece was completed in January 2022.
A mural in an underground passage used daily by residents.
It features the traditional Japanese "lions and peonies" motif.
This is the artist, Kurashiki Aya.
When choosing the motif, she spoke to residents, who pointed her to a local shrine where she discovered the iconic image.
I came down with COVID-19
during my research.
So I spent ten days cooped up
in my PARADISE AIR room.
The housekeeper made me
lunchboxes. It was so kind of her.
And that links back to the motif.
The story goes that lions can
relax around peonies.
I really felt the importance of
support during my illness.
It's why I chose that pattern.
Around 90 residents helped paint the mural.
Kurashiki printed the image on paper and stuck it to the wall.
The paper was then scraped off, so that only the ink remained.
The uneven surface meant that doing this by hand was an exhausting task.
It took great cooperation to make this incredible work a reality.
I much prefer art that feels
like part of the city.
There's a lot of culture
and history here.
It makes me so happy
to see new additions like this.
Isn't the power of art extraordinary?
Walking around Tokyo in particular, there are just so many dull, blank walls with nothing on them at all.
It feels like such a waste!
Just a splash of color, or something that catches your eye makes everyday life feel so different.
It gives you a little dash of inspiration, don't you think?
What was interesting to me about Matsudo was that so many of the people really get involved.
They have a real sense of ownership of their town.
They do.
At the end of the day, all towns are really defined by their residents.
Take Kyoto, for example - it's always very obvious when you meet someone who encapsulates Kyoto.
Yes, absolutely!
You know?
For sure.
Kyoto's special.
But I can't really think of a person who could do the same thing for Tokyo.
You're right.
I'm from Tokyo, but you're right.
It's a melting pot.
It is, yes.
I think the key is that there are people who don't think of "the town and me" - they think, "my town is me."
A place has to inspire that kind of thinking.
Anywhere with that kind of culture has a real edge, because it has a personality and an atmosphere.
Those are what give a place its future.
It can become a hometown for new generations.
A place to return to.
People fall in love with it.
Something like civic pride?
Yes, I think that's a term we're hearing more often these days.
And your work in rural areas is connected to that.
It is.
I'm not quite there yet, but after a drink or two you might hear me say, "Kamanuma is me!"
Getting ahead of myself.
But I do feel that way.
I hope that eventually I might be able to say, "the earth is me."
One day!
The barriers between me and the earth may fall away.
A platonic ideal for ecology.
Yes, definitely.
I'm not separate from the earth, we're the same thing.
If our planet is ailing, then so am I.
We all are.
We need to think about global problems as if they're our own, because they are.
That's the long-term goal.
I've really enjoyed our discussion today.
I hope we have the chance to talk to you again, maybe on site?
I'd love to go!
That would be great!
- See it for ourselves, plant some rice!
- We'd love to have you!
Thanks for coming today.
Thank you.
Thank you.