RECLAIMING COMMUNITY SPACE

Despite the ubiquity of public green spaces throughout the city, there is little opportunity to be more than an observer of them. Their flaw lies in their perfection. Due to massively inflated land prices in Tokyo individual expression through horticulture exists in the negative spaces between buildings, nooks in kerbs and ridges or cracks on bare walls.

The intervention would be completed through volunteer work from community members, starting with lifting up existing paving and ending with contributing flowers to the planters. A modular planting system will be at the heart of this intervention, whereby plants can be potted individually, but once placed together form a uniform bed, symbolic of an individual’s contribution to a community. Its completion will represent a recovery of community solidarity and pride in one’s locale, reclaiming space lost to municipality.

In the spirit of guerrilla gardening, the intervention, and in turn the scheme, will celebrate transience and ephemerality, whereby the planters will be user defined. Plants can be taken and replaced depending on the seasons, respecting the natural cycle of growth and decay, whilst actively rebelling against the manicured permanence of traditional Japanese gardens.