Above is a kadomatsu, or new year’s decoration that rests on the ground. These large ones are usually in front of businesses. This one is in front of one of my favorite Tokyo haunts: the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium constructed for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and open to the public now in central Tokyo.
The materials are bamboo, [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Plant’
31 Dec
New year decorations
2 Dec
Holiday plants in Metro & Odakyu stations
I am not a big fan of the artificial tree or of Christmas. But Japanese love holidays, imported and national. I wonder whether the stations planned these small seasonal displays, or if they were the initiatives of long-time workers.
I prefer the use of the flowering “Christmas” cactus at the Shinjuku Odakyu station. And below the [...]
24 Nov
Meeting Yamada Yoriyuki at Kajima
Recently I met with Yamada Yoriyuki (山田順之), Manager of the Office of Global Environment at constructino company Kajima and a leader in bringing biodiversity ideas to Japanese corporations. He showed me the new interactive illustration Kajima created of an integrated sustainable city, where bees pollinate community gardens, school fields are mowed by goats, falcons provide [...]
9 Nov
Marui department store brands itself with plants
Several months ago Marui opened up another department store in Shinjuku san chome, along with at least three other existing ones and retail competition that includes Isetan’s flagship across the street. It is interesting that one of its defining design themes is green space. If you arrive by Tokyo Metro, you can see strips of [...]
2 Nov
Public behavior: Tokyo’s advantage in building a livable city
A recent New York Times story about vandalism of Paris’ visionary Velib bike-sharing program highlighted an enormous advantage that Tokyo has in creating great public spaces: the respect that citizens pay to shared space and to each other.
To mitigate climate change, reduce traffic and clean the city’s air, Paris created a remarkable bike sharing program, [...]
27 Oct
Preparing plants for New Year’s celebration
Recently I had the pleasure of taking Kobayashi Kenji’s modern bonsai class at Sinajina. In addition to making my own miniature landscape with a black pine, rock and moss, I learned that gardening in October is focused on making plants beautiful for New Year’s celebrations and guests.
The class used eight year old black pine trees. [...]
26 Oct
Plants at Kawagoe festival
At the Kawagoe festival, or omatsuri, last weekend, there was a small street full of plant sellers, including this one focused on succulents and cactuses. Other featured plants included chrysanthemums, many of them sold without plastic pots. Many neighborhood festivals include a group of plant sellers, in addition to portable shrines, street food and other activities.
21 Oct
Garden Square in Nerima
Garden Square is located on an enormous plot of land in a quiet residential neighborhood in Nerima, Tokyo. Most of the land looks wild, and is used by a landscaping firm as its nursery. The owner also constructed a rustic chic modern building, with a pastry shop and flower and plant shop on the first [...]
20 Oct
Zero waste
Interesting New York Times article about how zero waste is moving from fringe to mainstream, including Yellowstone National Park (plant-based cups and utensils), an Atlanta restaurant (composting on premises), and Honda North America (no packaging means no dumpster at factories).
Food waste, 13% of United States trash, releases methane– a climate warming, greenhouse gas– when sealed [...]
15 Oct
Benefits of compact, car-free cities
Tokyo Green Space examines the ecological and human benefit of reimagining cities with a focus on people and natural environments. I was interested to read a provocative article recently in Business Week entitles: “Cities: A Smart Alternative to Cars.”
The author Alex Steffen of Worldchanging argues that rebuilding cities into walkable places through in-fill and zoning [...]
2 Sep
Who’s YOUR City?
I read Richard Florida’s 2008 Who’s YOUR City? book, a “self-help” book about the central importance of where we live and the outsized opportunities in the world’s leading mega-cities. Drawing from Jane Jacobs and a wealth of statistics, Florida analyzes how the world has become “spiky” with concentrations of innovation and economic activity in mega-regions. [...]
5 Aug
Weed in Kanji: The language of nature
Kanji, the Japanese characters that borrows from Chinese, are not only ideographic but also modular. The secret to memorizing hundreds and thousands of kanji is to focus on their elements for meaning and sound. As an adult learner, I am struck by how many of these core kanji elements represent nature, such as water, tree, [...]
4 Aug
Hanabouzu flower and plant shop
My friend Britton Watkins was visiting Tokyo on business, and shared with me some of his favorite plant and design stores. Above is his photo of a moss ball in Hanabouzu (花坊主) flower and plant shop in Takaban, Meguro (near Gakugei Daigaku).
Like Sinajina, Hanabouzu offers highly refined, small scale plants. They have modern bonsais, moss [...]
9 Jul
Flowers and plants in Tokyo Metro men’s rooms
Recently I noticed plants and (fake) flowers in Tokyo Metro men’s rooms. Who puts them there? Janitors? Passengers? Station agents? I enjoy how an anonymous person has used low-cost greenery to improve these pedestrian spaces. Above is a vine growing out of a 2 liter bottle, sitting on top of tissue paper and “3D” face [...]
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