Story Category: Urban space.
Car-centric lifestyles, lack of green public spaces and population decline encouraged the development of this central green space that contributes to the physical and mental well being of the local citizens.
Project
Manabi-no-Mori Park
City
Kakamigahara City (Japan)
Challenge
Car-centric lifestyle, lack of green public spaces and population decline.
Solution
A central green space that contributes to the physical and mental well being of the local citizens.
Kakamigahara City has a population of 150000 and is located on the rural outskirts of Nagoya in central Japan. The city experienced rapid urban development in the 1960’s and 1970’s that led to an increased motorised lifestyle and the destruction of valuable green spaces.
Following his 1997 election, the Mayor Shin Mori promised to transform Kakamigahara into a “park-city” where green spaces would be reintegrated to the urban area in order to create a more pleasant sustainable environment for the local residents. His plan was to create a “Green Corridor” that would comprise of three corridors (urban corridor, river corridor and forest corridor) and through which 7 key locations would be connected.
Manabi-no-Mori (literally meaning “learning forest”) was designed to become the central location of the green corridor plan and works to reverse the critical conditions of local vegetation and water circulation. The park is the result of a collaborative effort between the Mayor and Professor Mikiko Ishikawa, a landscape architect from the Environmental Design Laboratory at the University of Tokyo. Together and with the support of design students from Tokyo and local residents, they developed an important green space of 40 hectares that features family friendly promenades, ponds, meadows, grass slopes, a cafeteria, public toilets and a redesigned health centre.
The site also offers a park ranger programme that invites local residents to volunteer and help maintain the green environment. The programme aims at cultivating the citizen’s awareness of green spaces and promotes good design practices for sustainable environments through workshops. 1750 residents have registered as volunteers since the opening of the park in 2005, an exceptional number that demonstrates the success of this initiative.
Manabi-no-Mori was awarded the Prime Minister’s Green City Award (Japan) in 2005.
Designer
Mikiko Ishikawa (University of Tokyo)
Client
Kakamigahara City
Image copyright
Mikiko Ishikawa – Hideya Yamashita (University of Tokyo)
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