The City of the Future
Together with Toyota Motor Corporation, Bjarke Ingels Group, BIG, unveiled this month, Toyota Woven City as the world’s first urban incubator dedicated to the advancement of all aspects of mobility at the foothills of Mt. Fuji in Japan.
Woven City Park Image by Bjarke Ingels Group
TWC Courtyard image by Bjarke Ingels Group
Envisioned as a living laboratory to test and advance mobility, autonomy, connectivity, hydrogen-powered infrastructure and industry collaboration, Toyota Woven City (TWC) aims to bring people and communities together in a future enabled by technology yet grounded in history and nature. By combining the legacy of Japanese craftsmanship and the tatami module with robotic fabrication technology, Japan’s construction heritage lives on, while building sustainably and efficiently into the future.
Toyota Woven City by Bjarke Ingels Group
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- TWC OfficE interiors and interiors of a home as designed by BIG
TWC road image by Bjarke Ingels Group
TWC Located at a 175-acre former factory site in the city of Susono in Shizuoka, Toyota Woven City creates new equality among vehicles, alternate forms of movement, people and nature, streamlined by the promise of a connected, clean and shared mobility. The city will utilize solar energy, geothermal energy, and hydrogen fuel cell technology to strive towards a carbon-neutral society, with plans to break ground in phases beginning in 2021.
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- Shared street image and city trail by BIG.
The Woven City is conceived as a flexible network of streets dedicated to various speeds of mobility for safer, pedestrian-friendly connections. The typical road is split into three, beginning with the primary street, optimized for faster autonomous vehicles with logistical traffic underneath. The Toyota e-Palette – a driverless, clean, multi-purpose vehicle – will be used for shared transportation and delivery services, as well as for mobile retail, food, medical clinics, hotels, and workspaces. The recreational promenade is occupied by micro-mobility types such as bicycles, scooters and other modes of personal transport, including Toyota’s i-Walk. The shared street allows residents to freely meander at a reduced speed with an increasing amount of nature and space. The third type of street is the linear park, a path dedicated to pedestrians, flora, and fauna. An intimate trail provides a safe and pleasant environment for leisurely strolls and nature breaks through the ecological corridor connecting Mount Fuji to the Susono Valley.
Typical blocks imagined by BIG
The three street types are woven into 3×3 city blocks, each framing a courtyard accessible only via the promenade or linear park. The urban fabric of the woven grid expands and contracts to accommodate a variety of scales, programs, and outdoor areas. In one instance, a courtyard balloons to the scale of a large plaza, and in another, to become a central park providing a city-wide amenity. Hidden from view in an underground network lies the infrastructure of the city, including hydrogen power, stormwater filtration, and a goods delivery network dubbed the ‘matternet’. The buildings at the Woven City will advance mass timber construction. A mix of housing, retail, and business – to be built primarily of carbon-sequestering wood with photovoltaic panels installed on the roofs – characterize each city block, ensuring vibrant and active neighborhoods at all times of the day. Toyota’s R&D spaces house robotic construction, 3D printing, and mobility labs, while typical offices flexibly accommodate workstations, lounges and indoor gardens. Residences in the Woven City will test new technology such as in-home robotics to assist with daily living. These smart homes take advantage of full connectivity using sensor-based AI technology to perform functions such as automatic grocery deliveries, laundry pick-ups or trash disposal, all while enjoying spectacular views of Mt. Fuji.
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- City Plaza and office interiors
Name: TOYOTA WOVEN CITY
Code: TWC
Date: 07/01/2020
Program: Urbanism
Status: In Progress
Size in m2: 708200
Project type: Commission
Client: Toyota Motor Corporation + Kaleidoscope Creative
Collaborators: Squint Opera (Animation), Mobility in Chain (Transportation Consultants), Atelier Ten (Sustainability)
Location Text: Susono, Shizuoka, Japan
Location: (35.1739643,138.90664390000006)
Awards:
ADDITIONAL FILES
BIG_TWC_TOYOTA-WOVEN-CITY_FULL-ANIMATION-BY-SQUINT-OPERA.mp4
PROJECT TEAMPartners-in-Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Leon Rost
Project Manager: Yu Inamoto
Project Leader: Giulia Frittoli
Team: Agla Egilsdottir, Alvaro Velosa, Brian Zhang, Fernando Longhi, Jennifer Son, John Hein, Joseph Baisch, Mai Lee, Margherita Gistri, Minjung Ku, Nicolas Lapierre, Peter Sepassi, Raven Xu, Samantha Okolita, Shane Dalke, Thomas McMurtrie, Yi Lun Yang, Nasiq Kahn, Jeffrey Shumaker
