> HONORABLE MENTIONS

> Megastructures of Neo-Tokyo

> City: Tokyo

> Issue: Infrastructure

Team Members:

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Daniel Tay

Clara Chow

The unique socio-economic conditions within Japan create a clear separation between work and play. Focusing on the salarymen and the reclusive social hermits, the project explores the anachronistic work culture of its society, and thereafter, speculates on its future.

In the context of Tokyo, the infrastructure is unable to keep up with the growth of the city. As a result, the increasing densification has resulted in costly real estate within the city, such that there is a constant flux of daily commuters. As buildings get increasingly high-rise, the only untouched area is the airspace above the extensive rail network.

Following the principles of Metabolism, the intervention proposes a Megastructure typology, with an adaptive architectural and infrastructural system that responds to the situational demands and growth of society, with its kit of parts being able to be replaced and upgraded over time. These Megastructures will utilise the extensive transport network as a resilient infrastructural framework to facilitate the circular flow of the system components. Having a typically long life cycle, they will complement the shorter life cycles of the building and facilitate social interaction, which encompass work and leisure, serving as a functional appendage of the city.

The project does not seek to be a prescriptive cure-all, but instead, it is a satirical discourse of a radical projection of what the workforce could evolve into. Taking the form of a megastructure that constantly adapts and evolves, it serves as a prototypical model for Tokyo to preserve and protect the workforce within the city-state within the next century.