Mono no aware in a bicycle graveyard: this is where your bike goes if you abandon it in Japan. A nice little place next to the ocean where the bicycles slowly disappear in a sea of green. Forgotten by their owners, dreaming of the places they’ve been to.
自転車の墓場で、もののあわれ：自転車を放置するとここに置かれる。気持ちいい海の隣に、自転車たちはだんだん緑の海に沈む。オーナーに忘れられて、昔行ったところの夢を見ている。
Residents transform a drab street lined by a concrete wall into a liveable place using potted plants and a public bench. Great tactical urbanism intervention!
住民達は鉢植えとベンチを使って、この単調で退屈な道とコンクリート壁を住みやすい場所に変えました。「tactical urbanism」の介入のすばらしい例です。
こんな広い所できっとすばらしい探検ができる！
This wide space is just waiting to be explored!
Exploring informal urban greenspace in Brisbane and Sapporo
Please see “slide notes” on Slideshare for context/comments/residents’ voices!
Awesome paper looking at vacant lots, their potential as children play space and levels of fences as barriers to such play (Japanese with English abstract, full PDF free).
“A Study on Vacant Lots Enclosed by Fences in Relation to Urbanization”, Hayashi et. al. 1999, Journal of the Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture, Vol. 63 (1999), No. 5, P. 667-670.
This overgrown house demonstrates nicely how vertical green can increase plant-covered surface - and look beautiful!
In Japan, many people have to be creative to find space for gardening. The picture on the right shows a mini-garden in the informal gap greenspace behind a high-rise parking lot; while tiny, it’s obviously well-loved. In Australia on the other hand, vast strips of suburban land are maintained (with high energy and labor cost) as minimal lawn with no little human use beside the questionable aesthetic value.
I wonder what magic the crafty minimal-space gardeners in Japan could do if they could work with Australian street verges.
Greener and more colorful neighborhood? Turn unnecessary road parts into semi-public gardens!
Less maintenance maybe more: the plants lining a sidewalk guard rail soften up this space and make it more visually interesting.
Panorama of a vacant lot informal greenspace in Sapporo, Japan. The diversity of form and colour of these plants simply amazes me!
Urban wildlife is abundant in Japan - in it’s plastic form. Various animals from tanuki to rabbit and frog line construction sites and keep pedestrians safe.
Locals use this canal bank informal greenspace for urban agriculture - the most amazing thing I have encountered in my research so far!
River flood banks have been used as recreational greenspace. In many cases however, the frequent flooding makes their full subjugation to human rules impossible - and creates a constant spectacle of changing urban natural landscape.
Our infrastructure shapes the urban environment and is seldom associated with ecology and greenspace. Yet it is frequently colonised by spontaneous vegetation, turning it informal greenspace eventually. Looking out of a train window while in urban areas is a great way to spot such spaces!
Another example of how building material influences the chances of spontaneous vegetation to create informal greenspace. Excellent ecological studies have already been done on this topic, too (see Francis & Hoggart 2008, 2009, 20011)!
