Landscape and Civic Design Lab at the University of Tokyo

++Polar coordination system

City is an extremely efficient system which human beings have created in order to make the benefit of living together in a group biggest and optimized. Such cities are seen all over the world, New York, London, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai... Masterplans in such cities treat a group of people as a target. In this reason, the method of zoning has been just invented to treat that anonymous group easily. We started this project from thinking, "What does it means by sustainability?". The sustainability we propose here is the condition where each individual is connected and linked, which is an absolutely different system from the groupoptimized society of a modern city. Groups in which the units of individuals or the ones of families are sustainable could have the very sustainability as a whole. Lots of dots are seen in the masterplan of out proposal. Each of these dots is the area for the residence and a new multifunctional center. Areas for agriculture, commerce development, and graveyard spread in a radial pattern from each dot.

+Radical Pattern Landscape

"Sustainability" must means the long-time-permanence of individuals. A group in which individuals gets together is called a village. As long as we start from such a fundamental point of view, our proposal can not help keeping sustainable. Lots of dots are located in our masterplan. Areas for agriculture, commerce development, open space, graveyard, public functions(school, kindergarden, city hall, medical clinic, parking, tourism development) and spread in a radial pattern from each dot. Such areas are not under the public control, but belong to each dot (=individuals).

+Simple Construction Method

of walls and roofs Several dots in the masterplan are for the residence and a new multifunctional center. While those walls and roofs are constructed in a simple method, only the difference of ways how to put the roof on the walls creates the variety of the usage, space quality, and the circumstances of the inside space of the building.

+Multiple Centered Structure

In addition, there is the network which connect each dot, an individual or a family. Dots, areas spread in a radial pattern from them, and the network connecting them are the basic principle to constitute this village. This configuration makes the village multi-centered or multi-poled, and create the redundancy, which enable it to correspond to the increase and the decrease of the size and scale of this village.

-Ethnic Route through the unrecognized villages

That network, the ethnic route, goes not only through in the village, but also through the unrecognized villages in the land of Israel. Water, knowledge, information, people come and go along this route. All the elements are dispersed on the network and linked optionally and intentionally. The fact that America has developed the technology of internets for the military purpose supports the evidence that this configuration or structure is sustainable and strong. This ethnic route through the unrecognized villages carries and spreads things, information, and people, and changes the land of Israel into the land of water and richness.

+Ethnic WAR-TER

From the more realistic viewpoint, we must get something to eat so that we can keep ourselves sustainable. The required water amount for agriculture is far more than we expect. The concept of "Virtual Water" has been developed to explain how physical water scarcity in countries in arid regions is relaxed by importing waterintensive commodities. Unit requirement of water resource to produce each commodity should be known for quantitative estimation of the virtual water trade, and there are some attempts for that. Even before this concept is proposed, it was often said that we need water one thousand times as much as the amount of wheat when we want to cultivate it. However, we need not one thousand times water, but two thousand times in actual calculation. Agriculture requires much water.

+Water Saving Device

In other words, strategic guaranty of water is the urgent proposition to stay in sustainability. How can we get water saved in this arid region? There are lots of devices in our proposal. One example is the water collecting devices along the route. This device collects water and purefy it. And in addition, it symbolizes the ethnicity of this route with its shape.

+Ground Scape

Not only saving the water, but also such a way to save water relates to the
circumstance of this village and its landscape. For instance, we can set up the performance for the ground to keep the water in itself by its pavement materials and their seal joint. This will become the design of the ground, that is, the Ground Scape. With positive utilization of the topography that usually works disadvantageously in saving water, this strategy to save water become the design of the ground. The circumstance of this village will be very unique with these strategies and everyone in the world will follow this system. Because this project is ultra-sustainable.