Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City

(Paperback)

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This book examines the urban fabric of contemporary Tokyo as a valuable demonstration of permeable, inclusive, and adaptive urban patterns that required neither extensive master planning nor corporate urbanism to develop.

These urban patterns are emergent: that is, they are the combined result of numerous modifications and appropriations of space by small agents interacting within a broader socio-economic ecosystem. Together, they create a degree of urban intensity and liveliness that is the envy of the world's cities. This book examines five of these patterns that appear conspicuously throughout Tokyo: yokocho alleyways, multi-tenant zakkyo buildings, undertrack infills, low-rise dense neighborhoods, and the river-like ankyo streets. Unlike many of the discussions on Tokyo that emphasise cultural uniqueness, this book aims at transcultural validity, with a focus on empirical analysis of the spatial and social conditions that allow these patterns to emerge. The authors of Emergent Tokyo acknowledge the distinct character of Tokyo without essentialising or fetishising it, offering visitors, architects, and urban policy practitioners an unparalleled understanding of Tokyo's urban landscape.

Reviews

"..."Emergent Tokyo" is a must-read for city lovers who want to learn more about Tokyo. " --Discourse
"For Almazan, the lesson of these "emergent" Tokyo spaces isn't that architects and urban planners elsewhere can simply drop them down in the middle of their cities. Rather, it is that design professionals should allow healthy cities to develop in the directions toward which they are trending naturally, acting more like midwives than surgeons." --Architectural Record
"If you read one book about Japan this year, it should be the beautiful, new Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City by Jorge Almazan and his Studiolab colleagues, including Joe McReynolds. --Market Urbanism

Author Bio

Jorge Almazn is a Spanish architect based in Tokyo and an associate professor at Keio University. His office, Jorge Almazn Architects, is committed to environmentally responsible and socially inclusive projects spanning from interiors and architecture to urban and community design.

Studiolab is a research and design unit led by Jorge Almazn at Keio University. Engaging students, researchers and external collaborators, Studiolab combines rigorous academic research in the form of thesis and journal papers with real urban interventions and architectural projects.