> The “Labyrinth” of Third Spaces​

> Malaysia

>FINALIST

Team Members:

​
Hazrini Binti Hassan,

Nurfatin Zakiah Binti Mohd Zaki,

Teh Dina Sofia Binti Mohd Walid, 

Puteri Mayang Bahjah Zaharin

Loneliness has become of the world’s epidemic and has often lead to mental illness. In Japan, suicidal rate is on the rise and is the sixth highest country with suicidal cases in the world and second among the eight major industrialized nations.

More than 30,000 Japanese committed suicide each year. One of the common ways of suicidal is by jumping in front of moving vehicles. As such, it is very common to see many suicidal cases happened in train stations in Japan.

Tanaka Kenji is one of the nine percent of Japanese who suffered from mental illness. Kenji always feel lonely because he neglected his social life for his career and unfortunately, his hard work did not pay off since he is often being rebuked by his employer. This drives him to isolate himself due his insecurities, which leads to social isolation and depression. The situation worsened when he attempted to commit suicide at Chuo Line, Shinjuku Station which is one of the most popular locations for train suicidal in Japan.

One of the ways to prevent this sort of situation to happen is by creating ‘Third Spaces’ at the suicidal locations. This ‘third spaces’ consists of a number of fragment blocks which will be built along the route to the Shinjuku Station. This space is designed to allow interaction among the train users and is surrounded with healing components and activities that help the users to experience the spaces by relaxing and unwind. The space is also created to provide a sense of community in a smaller scale.

With the injection of ‘third spaces’, the Chuo Line, Shinjuku Station will no longer be seen as a suicidal hotspot and thus, will create a new experience of community engagement within a busy area.